Published by:
Harvard Business Publishing
Length: 11 pages
Abstract
Out of a sense of corporate responsibility, many of today''s manufacturers are making commodity-like components to preserve jobs. This single-minded focus on preserving jobs can become a self-defeating objective. It often results in insourcing parts that are easy to manufacture, largely to make work, while outsourcing those that are hard to make. Over time, fixed costs rise, product differentiation declines, and manufacturing performance remains stagnant as employees become complacent. The very survival of the company is threatened. Companies must learn how to not make things: how to not make the parts that divert a company from cultivating its repertoire of skills--parts its suppliers could make more efficiently. Managers must gain the confidence to make strategic discriminations among the thousands of parts they know mostly in terms of cost, not function or importance to the product.
About
Abstract
Out of a sense of corporate responsibility, many of today''s manufacturers are making commodity-like components to preserve jobs. This single-minded focus on preserving jobs can become a self-defeating objective. It often results in insourcing parts that are easy to manufacture, largely to make work, while outsourcing those that are hard to make. Over time, fixed costs rise, product differentiation declines, and manufacturing performance remains stagnant as employees become complacent. The very survival of the company is threatened. Companies must learn how to not make things: how to not make the parts that divert a company from cultivating its repertoire of skills--parts its suppliers could make more efficiently. Managers must gain the confidence to make strategic discriminations among the thousands of parts they know mostly in terms of cost, not function or importance to the product.