INTER-FIRM MANUFACTURING STRATEGY José Alcides Gobbo Junior e Marcos Augusto de Vasconcellos
Resumo: Most studies available about manufacturing strategy have been done under the business paradigm (SKINNER(16), HAYES and WHEELWRIGHT(6); FINE and HAX(3); HAYES et al(7); SAMSON(14); HILL(8)). Recently it has been proposed other extended and up-to-date approach for the operations strategy field, but still working under the business units paradigm (SLACK and LEWIS(17)) and business units and intra-firm networks paradigm (RUDBERG and OLHAGER(13); HAYES et al(7)). However, nowadays the "new" paradigm of inter-firm networks competition determines the need for studies under a more holistic approach. This paper presents the results of an ongoing field research to verify the validity of the manufacturing strategy theory, which has been developed under a business unit paradigm, under a inter-firm networks perspective. For that, it was necessary to make some adaptations on the existing methodological approaches and theoretical ground for operations strategy, to cope with the specificities presented by inter-firm networks. Under this context, this article presents one methodological approach to extend the scope of two decision areas of operations strategy (vertical integration and facilities) but considering an inter-firm networks perspective. Additionally, the paper presents one example involving a qualitative and exploratory research to illustrate the utility of the proposed approach in an inter-firm network. Preliminary results obtained by the survey suggest the validity of the extended model.
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