Manufacturing strategies and the development of taxonomies: an international empirical research

The paper describes the development of a taxonomy of generic manufacturing strategies based on an empirical study. Data was gathered by means of a survey from 88 American, Japanese and Italian plants. Four different groups of plants have been identified, which differ in three dimensions orientation towards differentiation, orientation towards cost leadership and market scope. It was also observed that there are differences between the groups in the way they manage decisions involving manufacturing strategy and technology. Lastly, the taxonomy obtained has been compared with the main classifications of generic manufacturing strategies existing in literature.