Implementing co-operative production networks to secure and foster future competitiveness on the global market is a major strategic target for many small- and medium-sized enterprises. The text starts begins with a look at strategic management before moving onto operational product development and operations execution, and in doing so provides a detailed overview of the different key issues of setting up strategic production networks. Management concepts, the required information technology as well as best practices are introduced and discussed by leading researchers from Germany, Switzerland and China. The book is ideally suited for managers responsible for setting up global or regional co-operative production networks as well as researchers and students.

The phenomenon of globalization has increased in recent decades due to the opening of borders in Eastern Europe and the sudden emergence of other countries in the global trade economy. Yet, the process of becoming global to get access to growing markets or to achieve quality, service, and/or cost advantages from the reconfigured Value Chains is one

In Strategic Coupling, Henry Wai-chung Yeung examines economic development and state-firm relations in East Asia, focusing in particular on South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore. As a result of the massive changes of the last twenty-five years, new explanations must be found for the economic success and industrial transformation in the region. State-assisted startups and incubator firms in East Asia have become major players in the manufacture of products with a global reach: Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision has assembled more than 500 million iPhones, for instance, and South Korea’s Samsung provides the iPhone’s semiconductor chips and retina displays.Drawing on extensive interviews with top executives and senior government officials, Yeung argues that since the late 1980s, many East Asian firms have outgrown their home states, and are no longer dependent on state support; as a result the developmental state has lost much of its capacity to steer and direct industrialization. We cannot read the performance of national firms as a direct outcome of state action. Yeung calls for a thorough renovation of the still-dominant view that states are the primary engine of industrial transformation. He stresses action by national firms and traces various global production networks to incorporate both firm-specific activities and the international political economy. He identifies two sets of dynamics in these national-global articulations known as strategic coupling: coevolution in the confluence of state, firm, and global production networks, and the various strategies pursued by East Asian firms to attain competitive positions in the global marketplace.

The preceding process of globalization and the continuously rising competitive pressure on manufacturing companies in more developed economies unveiled the limits of classical site-focused optimization approaches. The focus of network optimization shifts ever more towards an integrative view of manufacturing networks, striving for a harmonization of the strategy-, configuration- and coordination levels. This book presents such an integrative approach to the strategic management of manufacturing networks. Besides strategic network requirements, this book discusses the derivation of an optimal global footprint and the optimization of network coordination activities. Special attention is paid to the site roles concept, especially to the concept of 'lead factory'. A large number of up-to-date cases from the producing industry enrich the book and provide the reader with vivid examples for the application of the presented concepts. Hence, this book is a must-read for both practitioners and academic researchers.

Global production and purchasing operations create a platform for entry into new markets. However, it takes considerable effort to plan and implement a sustainable globalization strategy; this book will help in that task. The wealth of experience and analysis featured in this book is the result of an extensive survey among leading manufacturing companies as well as countless discussions with executives who have personally wrestled with the issues of "going global." The book treats the whole range of management challenges. In breadth and depth, the insights it offers surpass what a manager or most individual companies could acquire on their own.

Written by Neil M. Coe, this Advanced Introduction provides a comprehensive guide to the vibrant and expanding global production network (GPN) approach, through deftly exploring its antecedents, theoretical underpinnings, and debates and controversies in the field. The author argues overall that, during a time of profound on-going challenges within the global economic system, the need for a GPN framework has never been more pressing.

Practitioners in process industry have to increasingly adapt their global production networks to changes in the competitive environment. A majority of the supply network design models proposed by academia do not sufficiently capture the questions that have to be resolved. This book provides the necessary operations research decision support tools. It builds on an example of the specialty chemicals industry.