Linking Manufacturing Priorities to Markets: Some Empirical Evidence

We explore the critical linkages between attributes of manufacturing strategy and attributes of marketing strategy. Generic linkages drawn from a significant managerial sample are presented and discussed. A second, independent sample is used to ascertain whether or not the generic linkages have predictive ability regarding linkages between business-unit level functional strategy attributes; a third independent sample replicates this analysis. The analysis supports the notion that aggregate, generic linkages between manufacturing and marketing strategy attributes have some predictive ability at the business unit level. Data is also presented showing that manufacturing strategy priorities are quite diverse; this diversity should be matched by a corresponding diversity in the use of various tactical manufacturing programs (e.g., Just-in-Time, Statistical Process Control). Data are also presented showing there is reasonable consistency in managerial assessments of the impact of various tactical manufacturing programs on manufacturing strategy attributes, thus supporting the notion of linking tactics to strategy.