Problems and Deficiencies in the Research on Manufacturing Strategic Planning as Reason for its non Applying in the Praxis

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to show major problems and defficiencies in the research of the content of the manufacturing strategic planning. Research of the content of the manufacturing strategic planning studies manufacturing strategic goals, strategic decisions inside manufacturing, relationship among strategic decisions and the impact of manufacturing strategic decisions on manufacturing strategic goals. Related to the research of manufacturing strategic goals we emphasise the question of appropriate determination of goals and the problem related to this question. The problem is that researchers often do not appropriately distinguish between the manufacturing strategic goals and the means to achieve them. In order to achieve appropriate distinction of goals and means at the manufacturing business function level we emphasise the distinction of the purpose of the manufacturing strategic goals and of the purpose of manufacturing strategic decisions. The purpose of manufacturing strategic goals is to guarantee the achievement of companyžs competitive advantage, and the purpose of manufacturing strategic decisions is to guarantee the achievement of appropriate results related to manufacturing strategic goals. We also emphasise that there is a lack of systematic research of relationship among the manufacturing strategic decisions and of the relationship between the manufacturing strategic decisions and manufacturing competitive priorities. The consequence of this is the neglect of possible trade-offs among the manufacturing competitive priorities and the neglect of the analysis phase in the process of planning. The neglect of the analysis leads to implementation of improvements on the basis of benchmarking best practices of other companies and to conclusions about universal approaches for improvement of manufacturing competitive priorities results, which is in confrontation with the approach of choosing improvement activities on the basis of identified problems