Dear @Moshen, this not exactly my field of expertise, but I could say something about the competitive capabilities of manufacturing company regarding performance evaluation! "Manufacturing capabilities are characterised by the set of practices in use. The capabilities are formed by the objectives for the manufacturing system paired with the history of decisions in manufacturing related issues...Also, dependent on the set of capabilities inherent in the system at hand different performance levels can be achieved, i.e. capabilities are the basis for operational performance.Thus, manufacturing capabilities can be viewed as the linkage between manufacturing strategy content and manufacturing performance..." Dissertation follows!

http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:23684/FULLTEXT01.pdf

The most important competitive capabilities of a manufacturing company for evaluating its performance are

Dear @Moshen, this not exactly my field of expertise, but I could say something about the competitive capabilities of manufacturing company regarding performance evaluation! "Manufacturing capabilities are characterised by the set of practices in use. The capabilities are formed by the objectives for the manufacturing system paired with the history of decisions in manufacturing related issues...Also, dependent on the set of capabilities inherent in the system at hand different performance levels can be achieved, i.e. capabilities are the basis for operational performance.Thus, manufacturing capabilities can be viewed as the linkage between manufacturing strategy content and manufacturing performance..." Dissertation follows!

http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:23684/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Ljubomir Jacić , Thank you so much, that file was so helpful.

In my Organization we have the following as competitive capabilities

In my opinion,a favorable approach to attain sustained, better performance relative to competitors, is to pursue distinguished, high-return strategies that aim at generating reasonable pricing power in the market, even at the expense of cost or asset turnover. Companies are more likely to achieve sustained success when they opt for investing in revenue growth through the ability to charge high prices for high quality goods.

A key challenge for executives, of manufacturing industries, is to recognize the specific steps to take within their industries to achieve this outcome.

Although I am relatively new at my present company, I could identify some factors which contribute to the competitiveness:

- the profit is wisely used for R and D and for equipment

- good working atmosphere

- hiring young (not me), talented pople

- maintaining high technical level

- continuous monitoring of competitive technologies

There could be many factors few are listed in the following

Compulsory investment in R&D

Engaging work force at all level

Taking care of compulsory conflicts

Taking care of training of employees

Continuous monitoring of competition in the market

Involving people from academia

Fact based decisions rather then decisions based on gut feeling

Linking part remuneration with performance

Dear Dr. Mohsen Mazaheri Asad , Please pullout following links they will be very useful in your research.

thanks

http://goizueta.emory.edu/profiles/documents/publications_working_papers/rosenzweig/Integration%20paper.pdf

http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:23684/FULLTEXT01.pdf

Thank you Mr.Dubey  for files attached.

Dear Dr. Mohsen Mazaheri Asad , I think to have competitiveness, organization must believe in their philosophy, people, product and process and performance, Please go through attached paper for more details

Abhijeet Digalwar, Thank you for your paper.

• Improving the Bottom-line
• Preparing for the future

Yes, regarding the preparation for the future is an important issue! The emerging principles are: "Treat change programmes as a key, but limited strategic resource, In preparing for the future, consider whether your sales function needs an overhaul or you need to address an overarching company-wide issue, l Sweat the details, Treat bottlenecks as a symptom not a disease....“Change management” is a very broad term for a lot of different activities that are all a part of leadership”. Such leadership will, as ever, be essential as business prepares itself for the future."

http://www.economistinsights.com/sites/default/files/downloads/Celerant_LeadersOfChange_final%20final.pdf

I think there is no easy answer for the question. Every company would have specific competitive capabilities. (I think "competitive" could mean a lot of things.) For a deeper insight, I would suggest to look specially for the VRIO-Model of the Resource-based View.

beside all the good answers given, in the future Smart Factories and Smart Products will replace today's manufacturing. In some Countries it's already happening. Therefore high speed network structure and access, good performing Information System and functional Programming will be needed beside all the classic needs. 

You can read more under Industrie 4.0 ( germany as example).

January 2, 2015

This is a complex question with no short answers.

One can list a number of competitive capabilities of a manufacturing company. However, how many have been tested by researchers carefully to CONFIRM a positive relationship with company results or outcome? Next, what and how do you measure company outcome and results while testing for the effectiveness of manufacturing?

When a company performs better at competition, it can do well in market share, growth in revenue, and/or return on investment or a similar measure. Manufacturing takes a lot of investment. Some have attempted to use or test various plant-level or firm measures. Examples:

1. Swamidass and Newell, Manufacturing strategy, environmental strategy and performance: A path analytic model, Management Science, 1987.

2. Pagell and Krause, Re-exploring the relationship between flexibility and the external environment, Journal of Operations Management, 2004

3. Swamidass, The effect of TPS (Toyota Production System) on US manufacturing 1981-1998:…IJPR, 2007…this study uses a composite objective measure of performance based on a recognized financial measure (modified Z-score) of performance adapted for manufacturing firms.

Other studies linking manufacturing to performance are:

4. Flynn, Schroeder and Sakakibara The Impact of Quality Management Practices on Performance and Competitive Advantage, Decision Sciences, 1995

5. Kaynak, The relationship between total quality management practices and their effects on firm performance, Journal of operations management, 2003

6. And others…

Each researcher must make a judgment call as to the best measure of performance to evaluate the competitive value of manufacturing capabilities…Perhaps multiple measures would be better.

There are other issues to consider…one may argue that manufacturing competence alone does not lead to better return on investment, growth in revenue, or growth in market share…some may point out that marketing and sales functions play a key role…how does one isolate the effect of manufacturing capabilities from the effect of other factors such as marketing, sales, top management, employees, etc.? Hope the papers above would point you in the right direction.

Consider this book too:

Swamidass, Innovations in competitive manufacturing, AMACOM, a publication of the American Management Association, 2002

This is out of my expertise, no way can I give something in the depth that @Swamidass just gave right above. But I can introduce you a view of mine that changed the way I had been looking at practical manufacturing.

Do you know a rather small car company called Mazda in Hiroshima, JAPAN? They have had the best quarter since their foundation in the latest 2014 3rd quarter, and their expecting even more of the last quarter, with respect to sales and revenue. They introduced their 4th next generation B-segment car in Sept. of 2014, and this next generation, namely "Skyactiv Technology" is being the spine of this innovative growth since 2012(?) started with a SUV called CX-5. There are vast amount of features about this skyactiv technology, but the biggest point from a car company view is the bundle-planning. They plan a series of the same generation cars at once. The exterior-interior designers, sales, manufactures, engine R&D, chasis R&D, body R&D all come to the same table and plan all the cars to be introduced within the same generation. By doing so, the cars get to share a lot of the same structure of the module ( not it's geometry) making the lead time of developing the cars smaller. And, of course, the manufacturing becomes so much more simple because all the cars share the same structure, therefore workers only need to adapt against different geometries, which works fine as they utilize multi-car type production line. As a result of this bundle planning and a lot of hard work cross various sections, they've accomplished to compress the 54(?) steps required to build a car in to ultimately 4 steps (maximally getting the best out of a vast amount of NC machinery station).

What I'm trying to get at here, is that thing have changed from the days when companies were competing over how many transistors they can put on a single chip. LSIs required a huge amount of facility investment to be competitive. But when their plan failed to read the trend or the company needed to change their product, the cost for tuning the line facilities were more equal to a new facility investment. The manufacturing design was not robust for change. Clamshell type cell phones started of being produced in these kind of lines. But from a few years ago, they drastically changed the lines to a non-automatic one, with a lot of workers lined up so that they can adapt to the change of products. The case is the same with digital cameras as well. One way of looking at Mazda's skyactiv technology is bringing robustness into the product lines as well as planning.

It's close to modular design and production of what VolksWagen has established, but seems to have more depth and change to a wider range of the corporate activity.

It's definitely different if your product is a toilet paper or a PET bottle, and where your selling your product. But my say is;you cannot evaluate the competitiveness of a manufacturing company just on input-output, and worker development and employee satisfactions, but also the robustness against the inner change of plans and environmental change. Otherwise, the business will not last. I think a revenue champion that doesn't last for the next 5 years cancels out the revenue. I'll rethink it if it lasts for 40 to 50 years though.

It's not academic at all, but I thought if this could be an inspiration... at least it's different from what TOYOTA's doing.