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The introduction of information system (IS) to an enterprise is a very important digitalizing stage in the manufacturing industries. The IS outsourcing is to leverage the information technology (IT) to improve the performance as well enhancement of competence. In recent years, the outsourcing is one of the major IS trends , and the IT outsourcing has become a very important management issue that is subject to the concept of specialization, insufficient resources and strategic focuses. In the process of IT outsourcing, some topics always been highlighted , like the selection of the best decision model, and how to bring the maximum profit to enterprise by using IT. This study is to explore the most decision factors of IT outsourcing in manufacturing industry of Taiwan . The purpose of this research focuses on studying the factors of Information System Outsourcing decisions for the manufacturing industry . The research method will be primarily based on AHP(Advanced Hierachical Program) , and the seclected target systems for outsourcing are ERP(Enterprise Resource Planning) , SCM(Supply Chain Management) and CRM(Customer Relation Management) ,those are the most popular systems that manufacturing industry is undergoing or considering outsourcing . The major findings in this study are : 1. Most industry experts surveyed tend to choose In-house instead of Outsourcing , that¡¦s diffenent to the world trend . 2. The most important factor for outsourcing decision is ¡¥Focus on enterprise competence¡¦, that¡¦s consistent with worldwide reports .

Overreliance on energy from fossil fuels is unsustainable because of their regional depletion and associated environmental impacts. The British industrial sector accounts for around one fifth of final energy demand and one third of carbon emissions nationally. This thesis attempts to quantify the potential for industrial energy efficiency from the current baseline, by adopting thermodynamic and economic perspectives. The methodology involves a top-down analysis of energy trends within the manufacturing sector to determine the baseline against which changes are measured, leading to bottom-up case studies which explicitly consider the detailed mechanisms affecting energy demand. Top-down analysis highlights the diversity between industrial sectors, for which a sectoral classification based on process homogeneity is proposed. It also enables the long term, systemic potential for efficiency improvements to be estimated and identifies the barriers to uptake. Bottom-up case studies are better suited to identifying the sectoral potential in the short to medium term. Firstly, the technical potential for heat recovery from industrial sectors is quantified by recourse to thermodynamic quality and spatial considerations. Secondly, an energy and exergy analysis of a glass furnace enables a distinction between avoidable and unavoidable losses, leading to the identification of economic savings. Thirdly, a process integration study at a pulp and paper mill based on a pinch analysis and optimisation of a heat exchanger network highlights economic efficiency improvements. This thesis demonstrates that realising the full industrial energy efficiency potential requires improvements to public policy intended to overcome market-related barriers, especially the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and the Carbon Trust, with additional scope for a mandatory efficiency standard relating to motors. Energy efficiency has to part of a company’s overall strategy to be effective. Future work should focus on heterogeneous sectors and the broader effects on industrial energy efficiency of globalisation and the shift towards services.

Cross-border acquisitions as effective strategic choicesare used widely to enhance competitive advantages inChinese enterprises in manufacturing industry. The decisionmaking is influenced by certain institutions under theuniqueness of Chinese socialism system. This study investigatesthe influence of institutions towards the decisionmaking of cross-border acquisitions. The study aims to build a conceptual model to identifythe major regulative institutions and how they are influencingthe decision making of cross-border acquisitionsin Chinese manufacturing industry. The study conducts a case study on Lenovo and Geelybased on secondary data to investigate the influence ofregulative institutions on cross-border acquisitions. The decision making of cross-border acquisitions inmanufacturing enterprises is influenced by regulative institutionsfrom international and national level which presentedin three ways. First, the supportive regulation institutionscreate a favorable environment for cross-borderacquisitions. Second, government promotes cross-borderacquisitions by using policy as guidance. Third, the imperfectof the legal system impede the organizationsprogress.

The major of this study is to examine human resource professionals¡¦ competencies in car manufacturing industry and identify their affectability.This study perceived 20 competencies in four domains: strategic human resource expertise, general human resource functional expertise, self-development and support & service for employee to examine their importance through the Analytical Hierarchy Process, AHP.The results of this study indicate that the HRM expert of car manufacturing industry weighting the strategic human resource expertise with 51.1% related to the other three domains, general human resource functional expertise with 21.8%, self-development 10.5% and weighting support & service for employee for 16.7%.The result emphasizes the importance of strategic human resource expertise and the general human resource functional expertise follows. The HRM competencies in Taiwan are still ranged in training and development of employee, usage of HRM information system, performance review and compensations & benefits. But the experts reach the common consensus that the strategic human resource expertise will be the most important competency for the requirement as the circumstance changing.

The core issues of traditional manufacturing industry are production and marketing. Adopting the suitable marketing strategies and production techniques based on each product characteristics will render competitive advantage. In this paper, the relationship between the knowing of production and application process of sales representatives and the marketing process was studied. Customers from different regions having various concerns of the quality and cost, require differently. The customer feedbacks collected and classified as quality and service issues, were delivered to both the production and marketing departments to help them finding the solution together. What is more, the production department can be engaged in the improvement and follow up the result for the execution according to the customer feedbacks collected from sales department and some problems which occur during production. This research provides opportunities for employees to exchange experiences, learn from each other, and improve techniques in order not to make the same mistakes again. They have learned to do everything of their own accords and increase the efficiency of management as well. It also helps the marketing personnel to understand that their knowledge on product properties and production process and successfully stimulates to learn more and enhance the skills of selling and negotiating as well.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / The Boston Manufacturing Company was established on the Charles River in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1813. It was America's first modern factory not because it first put the processes of carding, spinning and weaving under one roof, as has often been stated, but because it first put all these processes to work by power. The company had t1velve original proprietors; the three most important were Francis Cabot Lowell, Nathan Appleton, and Patrick Tracy Jackson, all Boston merchants who had made fortunes in commerce and who sought new fields for investment when the War of 1812 made shipping unprofitable. Lowell was especially influential, for in 1811 he visited English factories and memorized plans for a power loom--export of textile machinery and emigration of mechanics was strictly prohibited by British law. To superintend its machine shop, the new company fortunately found Paul Moody. His mechanical genius gave the industry many improvements and several inventions. His shop became a "school for mechanics" and, although the company tried to prevent it, many of the workers stayed only long enough to learn, before answering the huge demand for Waltham-trained men in other factories. [TRUNCATED]

Manufacturers are transforming their business model from being a product dominant to a customer centric organization, in order to maintain competitive advantage, as well as deliver customer satisfaction thereby to build a long-term relationship with them. The management of complaint handling is regarded as a crucial contributor to its business performance. To identify key factors that influence the efficiency of complaint handling in manufacturing industry, it is important to start with an investigation of a company's internal complaint handling management. A multiple case study has been carried out in the form of semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with managers from six different manufacturing companies. The studyreveals that four factors in complaint handling are to be paid attention to, which include complaint handling process, qualified complaint handler, complaint handling system and complaint handling policy. By comparing the companies' viewpoints as well as theoretical perspective on these factors, some differences and similarities are revealed. Finally, the study found that the complaint handler who possesses the adequate technical knowledge of the product and interpersonal skills is the most essential factor that affects complaint-handling efficiency. In the meanwhile, complaint-handling system is increasingly important in assisting companies with customer complaints.

This study has quantitatively explored the relationships between investment, the use oftechnology and manufacturing perfonnance in UK manufacturing industry from 1979 to 1995. The exploration ofthe relationships is based on the review and the meta-analysis ofmanufacturing practice and performance relationships in the past along with the related theories and economic factors. The review of the operational management theory and the economic factors, which may influence manufacturing performance and practice relationship, helps to establish the wide context for this research and also contributes to the identified gaps. The meta-analysis ofthe relationships between practice and performance in the published studies has also contributed to the identified gaps in this research area. After the consideration ofthe discovered gaps and the availability of the database, the relationship between investment, the use oftechnology and manufacturing performance has been explored in this research. In order to quantitatively evaluate the relationships between investment, the use of technology, their interaction and manufacturing perfonnance, econometric modelling techniques have been used as methodological approaches. Two types ofmethods have been developed based on the review ofthe econometric techniques used in the past and the exploration of relevant econometric literature. The first method uses multiplicative interaction regression models combined with the centralisation method and ordinary least square estimation technique to investigate the relationship between investment, technology usage and their interaction and one dimensional perfonnance. The second method employs multiple-output models using the maximum correlation estimation technique to investigate the relationships between investment, technology usage and their interaction and two dimensional performance measures. A UK manufacturing database including two time periods, the 1980s and the early 1990s, covering seventeen years has been used to test the hypothesised relationships between investment in several forms, technology usage, their interaction and financial performance. The research discovers that it was difficult for investment to bring benefits for performance improvement at the year ofinvestment. The results support the hypotheses that a long-term planned investment brought benefits for manufacturing companies in the 1980s, however was not the case in the early 1990s. Technology usage was very important for performance improvement in the 1980s but the benefits brought by technology were diminishing as the mature stage ofsome key technologies was reached in the early 1990s. The analysis of the data suggests that the economic recession in the early 1990s was an important factor in explaining the phenomena and other economic factors might playa role as well. Investment and technology did interact with each other to contribute to performance improvement but it was not always the case. The results of the multiple-outputs model support the hypothesis that profitability and growth were two joint products of investment, the use oftechnology and their interaction in the immediate year or two after investment. This research also demonstrates the values of mUltiplicative interaction regression modelling and multiple-outputs modelling for manufacturing relationship studies.

The current system of credit ratings is full of conceptual and administrative flaws with highly rated companies defaulting in the short term. This has led regulators, investors, companies and researchers aiming to improve the system. This thesis details the study of this aim to improve the existing credit ratings system through a conceptual perspective, as well as developing it into a more comprehensive and overarching new corporate ratings methodology. In doing so, organisational performance appeared to be an apparent solution, to be considered as the main basis on which to derive new ratings for a company. However organisational performance has its own conceptual disagreements between managers and researchers concerning the dimensions to be measured for overall organisational performance. Therefore, this study attempted two tasks: to establish a link between ratings and organisational performance, and to identify what should be measured for overall organisational performance. This resulted in the development of new corporate ratings methodology based upon the overall organisational performance measurement in case of publicly traded companies. A mixed methods research strategy combined with a qualitative analyses of 10 selected company cases and 24 interviews; and quantitative analyses of the performance of 128 publicly traded companies from the UK, the USA and the India stock exchanges in 4 manufacturing and 3 service industries was adopted in the development, testing and application of ‘new company ratings’ and ‘overall organisational performance measurement’ propositions. Secondary data was obtained from companies’ annual reports, sustainability reports, social responsibility reports, performance reports available from companies’ official websites; and company profiles generated by trade analyst companies such as Bloomberg and Morningstar. Primary data was collected from company managers, industry experts, trade analysts and investors through telephonic or face-to-face semi-structured interviews. Company reports and interview transcripts were analysed using qualitative content analysis. A metaphor was applied to understand and to derive the concept of overall organisational performance measurement in terms of stability, resilience and sustainability. A secondary data survey of 128 companies was conducted to test three hypotheses of organisational performance (OP) based ratings, stability – resilience – sustainability as main dimensions of OP, and the application of an overall OP score to derive new corporate ratings. Performance data for 54 dimensions for 128 companies was collected and analysed, applying reliability analysis, principal components analysis, multiple discriminant analysis and non-parametric independent sample tests of Mann-Whitney U and Kruksal-Wallis. All hypotheses were accepted proving the concept and model based on statistical and subjective significance. Findings suggest there is a strong link between corporate ratings and organisational performance (OP), and OP measurement could be utilised to provide improved and overarching new corporate ratings as compared to existing credit ratings. A significant difference was found to exist between new corporate ratings and existing credit ratings, with new corporate ratings having a better predictive accuracy of company performance over a three years duration. Sustainability was found to contribute more towards measurement of organisational performance as compared to the traditional dimension of stability, comprising financial and operational performance. Very high reliability and principal component scores for sustainability proved that organisational effectiveness can be measured as one of the contributing dimensions to overall organisational performance. Other findings suggest that there is a clear divide between researchers studying OP as a variable and developing a framework in which to measure it. Overall OP can be measured by applying the conceptual lenses of stability, sustainability and resilience, comprising various sub-dimensions. Major and novel contributions of this research are: a new approach in providing corporate ratings based upon overall organisational performance, and a new concept of measuring overall organisational performance in terms of stability, resilience and sustainability.