Um clássico (parte II)

"I became gradually aware of a new set of circumstances that were surrounding and invading the world of manufacturing and making a successful manufacturing operation increasingly difficult. The primary cause seemed to be a new environment – an environment in which there was more competition, more pressure from management, labor, stockholders, consumers, and the public. The environmental changes were characterized by growing foreign competition, an accelerating rate of technological change, and new modes of competition. Competition was resulting in more advertising, narrower profit margins, a flood of new products, pressures toward integrating forward and backward, and broadening product lines. (Moi ici: o que aconteceu aos americanos nas décadas de 70 e 80 do século passado, com o choque japonês, aconteceu-nos a nós portugueses com a conjugação da queda do Muro e a unificação económica do mundo; a adesão da China à OMC, a adesão da Europa de Leste à UE e a nossa entrada no pelotão da frente do euro. Aquilo que funcionava deixou de resultar.)

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Controlling the old, conventional problems – to produce at lower cost, to achieve satisfactory quality constantly, to meet delivery promises, to cut down the time necessary to deliver each order, to get new products into production more quickly, and to maintain investment, facilities, and inventories at low levels while adjusting flexibly to changes in volume – became even more difficult. This set of conflicting requirements intensified the fact that no matter what manufacturing managers attempt to do, they have always been easily susceptible to criticism by top management. This is inherent in the nature of the manufacturing world: The successful manufacturer must produce quickly and deliver on schedule a quality product at a minimum of cost and investment.
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In the middle of this research into what was going on in United States industry, of course I came across some companies whose manufacturing functions were extraordinarily well-managed. The outstanding feature of these companies seemed to be that in some way or another they had forged manufacturing into a major and formidable competitive weapon. They competed not only with new products, marketing, advertising, and skillful financing, but also with unique approaches to a competence in manufacturing. They competed with manufacturing because they had exceptionally short deliveries, or remarkably low costs, or could move fast in developing new products, or produced the same volume with much lower investment than their competitors."

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Com esta introdução o cenário fica montado para o que vem a seguir.

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Não misturarás alhos e bugalhos na mesma linha de produção! Não tentarás servir Deus e o Diabo em simultâneo!

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Trechos de retirados de "Manufacturing in the Corporate Strategy" de Wickham Skinner."