Abstract Today’s business environment involves a globalised market, greater than before competition and more challenging customers, all factors which contribute to higher uncertainty and variability. Manufacturing flexibility is becoming more important in order to cope with the complexity of products through frequency volume changes and evaluations of the technological requirements of products. The research for this thesis was performed within a subcontractor company, Laserkraft AB, who focus on laser cutting, turning and welding processes in their production. The company utilises a variety of volume and product mixes, which is in correlation with the objective of this study. The purpose of this research was to investigate the common source drivers in order to achieve volume and product mix flexibility on batch production systems. First, a literature review was conducted in order to build the framework of common source factors between volume and product mix flexibility. Then, a single case study was conducted to examine the outcomes of framework on batch production. In this case, qualitative techniques included interviews and an observation of the shop floor. The analysis of this study was conducted with empirical research on a case study and theoretical framework from literature. From the literature stand point; it was found that flexible manufacturing competencies (FMC) and strategic flexibility approaches are two main elements to determine internal source drivers between volume and product mix flexibility. The groups of common source factors were then analysed with respect to characteristics of batch production systems at the chosen company. A comparison between the framework and the empirical findings identified source drivers in order to achieve volume and product mix flexibility. Due to the limited nature of the study, all source factors that have an impact on achieving volume and product mix flexibility might not be presented in this thesis. Besides, it is difficult to generalise the result on a single case study. As a result, each organisation and industry refers to their product, process and type of layout, and requires a group of practices to achieve volume and product mix flexibility. This thesis concludes with the top three common source factors between volume and product mix flexibility such as: set-up time reduction, multi-trained employees and advanced manufacturing technology.

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Research has validated the contribution of information sharing to performance improvement. It has also suggested that flexibility is a highly important competitive priority for those companies where demand is volatile. Several studies argue that flexibility has been recognized as a key enabler for supply chain responsiveness. However, the impact of information sharing on supplier flexibility is still unexplored, especially for the companies that operate in agile business environments such as in the automotive industry where flexibility is a strategic requirement to manage demand uncertainty. In agile supply chains, such as in the automotive industry, information sharing can play an important role in responding to demand variability. In such settings, the demand volumes generally fluctuate, and hence create production-scheduling problems for the upstream suppliers such as first-tier suppliers. Interestingly, the impact of demand fluctuations on suppliers is higher than that of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). The aim of this doctoral thesis is to investigate the role of information sharing between OEMs and first-tier suppliers, in enhancing supplier flexibility. Particularly, the research focuses on exploring the relationship between sharing demand schedules and inventory data, and volume and delivery flexibility. The questions on whether information sharing between OEMs and first-tier suppliers affect supplier flexibility remain unanswered. The following research questions have emerged:  RQ1: How does information sharing between OEMs and first-tier suppliers affect the latter's responsiveness to fluctuating demand? RQ2: What is the relationship between information sharing of OEMsʼ demand forecasts and inventory data, and suppliers’ volume and delivery flexibility? RQ3: What factors should OEMs consider to improve the sharing of demand forecasts with suppliers? The empirical part of this thesis comprises three individual studies that constitute the empirical foundations of the research problem. Each study analyzes one research question using its own methodological approach. Hence, different research methods for collecting and analyzing data were used to address the research questions. Applying different research methods is deemed advantageous because it allows for methodological rigorousness in this doctoral thesis. This thesis contributes to the body of knowledge in three dimensions—theory, method, and context. First, it contributes to the academic field of operations and supply chain management by developing a model to explain how information sharing could affect suppliers’ delivery performance. The model provides a measurement scale to measure the level of information sharing between OEMs and suppliers, and its impact on suppliers’ delivery flexibility. Second, this thesis contributes to the methods by using state-of-the-art techniques, which is partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) including consistent PLS, and applying advanced concepts to empirically test the proposed model. Third, this thesis has a managerial contribution to examine the concept of information sharing and flexibility at the supplier level. Investigating the problem at the supplier level may enable managers to improve short-term decisions, such as production scheduling decisions, internal production, and inventory processes, and evaluate collaboration practices with OEMs. This doctoral thesis is organized in a monograph format comprising five chapters: Introduction, Literature review, Methodology, Empirics, and Conclusion. As an outcome, several scientific articles have emerged from this thesis and have been submitted for consideration for publication in peer-reviewed journals and international conferences in the field of operations and supply chain management. These articles are listed and appended at the end of this dissertation. / <p>QC 20160302</p>

Laws and regulations are controlling and have generated great impact on the pharmaceutical industry and putting high requirements on production to follow good manufacturing procedures. There is a high pressure on production to decrease the time-to-volume for new products implementations due to the long product development phases where the medicine product patent life only have 35-40% left when production can start. This have generated that production have applied a way of thinking when developing production lines that have a tendency of becoming a scale up over time where a new production line is added to the production plant to be able to produce the volume needed for customers. Astra Zeneca, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, predicts a future where they will need to handle more products launches parallel where the new product will be produced both in small and large volumes to new customers. In this thesis a single case study have been performed at where a new product is being implemented, the project Genuair at Astra Zeneca Sweden operations in Södertälje. This thesis have be executing with the overall aim of supporting the development of a new layout, a functional layout. The project Genuair is a project where a new product is introduced in a new way, by buying a patent. The project is in the beginning of building the first production line that have a continuous flow layout and there is already a plan to build a second production line to be able to produce the needed volume. The predicted future for the Genuair products is in line with the general predicted future within Astra Zeneca generating a need for higher volume flexibility and higher product-mix flexibility. This change will have an impact on the current Genuair production layout generating a decreasing of 45 % in volume output after analyzing the production line by building a simulation model. The current production layout is facing different limitations where long complex changeovers is the main reason for the decreasing in volume output. The current layout is also generating limitations where production is limited by equipment, vulnerable for shutdowns, laws and regulations and the need for fulfilling the capabilities of safety, health and environment, quality, deliverability and cost. A functional layout is presented that builds on achieving volume flexibility, product-mix flexibility and expansion flexibility. The introduction of a functional layout will generate challenges within the areas of laws and regulations, compliance, location of machines in different hygiene zones, traceability, material handling, the product-process matrix and the mind set within Astra Zeneca. The functional layout is analyzed by the development of a simulation model and compared to the current production layout and proven to handle the predicted future by primarily handling the changeovers in a different way that is the main limitation that follows by having a need for high volume flexibility and product-mix flexibility within the pharmaceutical industry. The functional layout will generate a higher degree of flexibility that will come to the expense of cost.