Global manufacturing capability modelling and evaluation.

Desires to gain access to new markets, minimise production cost, take advantage of regional investment incentives and enhance technological development have prompted many companies to study the feasibility of globalising their manufacturing activities. They need evaluation tools which will provide structured and systematic methodologies to study and facilitate global manufacturing decisions. Past work by numerous academics and researchers in comparing the manufacturing competitiveness between different nations provide valuable insight into the advantages and disadvantages of locating manufacturing facilities in different countries. In an operational point of view, however, companies require more specific information about a changing industry and its sub-industries with the view of evaluating their capabilities within the context of global socio-economic and technological trends.This thesis proposes a conceptual model that will assist companies to measure, compare and project their manufacturing performances when supplying to a particular market using products manufactured in different locations. This Manufacturing Capabilities Model is conceptually represented by a cuboid, the three axis of which relates to manufacturing process, performance and potential respectively. Manufacturing processes and performance measures are organised in a hierarchical matrix under major stages of the production process and four main performance criteria of cost, quality, delivery and flexibility. The relative importance of these four performance criteria to a company varies according to the structure of the industry in a particular region. Potential represents the changes in performance in response to changes in the business environment. The validity of the model is demonstrated based on its implementation on the steel industry.The Manufacturing Capabilities Model adopts Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique to evaluate global manufacturing competitiveness. This model enables a company to compare the competitiveness of different production route configurations encompassing different plants in different countries. It analyses the multiple-attribute problems by decomposing them to hierarchies. It provides pairwise comparison of criteria and generates an integrated overall score based on which alternative decisions can be ranked and compared.Software built on Expert Choice, a software package based on AHP, facilitates the implementation of the model in the steel industry. User interface is provided by Microsoft Excel with Visual Basic for Applications. Several options are available for the users to analyse performance results.The model validation is supported by a comprehensive questionnaire which facilitates data collection in the steel industry. Two industrial case studies based on the Chinese steel industry are used to validate the overall modelling methodology.