Download the book of abstracts - EurOMA 2011

Managing the operations-strategy interface
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STR31 Manufacturing supporting strategies in SMME
Kristina Säfsten(1), Mats Winroth(1),(2)
(1)Jönköping university, Jönköping, Sweden, (2)Chalmers Institute of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden
Small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises (SMMEs) constitute the backbone of European industry, employing
several times the number of people compared with larger companies. It is necessary that these smaller companies
continuously work actively in developing their understanding about how they can compete on the market and how they
in the best possible way can develop and utilize their major investments in manufacturing resources. Manufacturing
strategies describe companies’ roadmaps in doing that. The manufacturing strategy maturity among Swedish SMMEs
varies but there is a strong will to learn and to develop. There are however some obstacles on the way.
STR32 Sustaining local manufacturing: A longitudinal study of Swedish companies
Mats Winroth(1), Muhammad Abid(1), Bengt Almgren(2), David Bennett(3),(4), Breno
Nunes(3)
(1)Chalmers University, Gothenburg, Sweden, (2)SolvingEfeso AB, Gothenburg, Sweden, (3)Aston University,
Birmingham, UK, (4)University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
This paper reports an investigation of local sustainable production in Sweden aimed at exploring the factors contributing
to survival and competitiveness of manufacturing. Eight companies were studied on two occasions 30 years apart;
in 1980 and 2010. To provide a valid longitudinal, perspective a common format for data collection was used. As
a framework for data collection and analysis the DRAMA methodology was employed (Bennett and Forrester,
1990). There are a number of results reported in detail concerning long term competitiveness and sustainability of
manufacturing companies.
STR33 Enabling Factors of Adaptive Capability in Small and Medium Enterprises
Aylin Ates(1), Marcus Assarlind(2), Catherine Maguire(1), Umit Bititci(1), Jill
MacBryde(1)
(1)University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK, (2)Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden
This paper aims to define organisational adaptability and explain the conditions and factors affecting SMEs’ (Small and
Medium Enterprises) ability to adapt to the environment rather than fire fighting. The results are based on an ongoing
R&D work as part of a European FP7 project called ‘FutureSME’. We identified that a combination of factors contributes
to adaptability that encompasses interfaces between resilience, agile operations and strategy. This paper contributes to
theory and practice by taking vastly diverse literature into a single framework to explain the organisational adaptability
concept as demonstrating its use in understanding adaptive behaviour in manufacturing SMEs.