Contribution and relevance

The effective manufacturing ramp-up processes, expressed in terms of to-volume, time-to-market and time-to-quality, are essential, yet often overlooked elements of a successful product introduction. The relevance of this study is the innovative approach in looking at intra-firm collaboration during this stage of product development and production. The benefit of this research comes from considering the wider intra-organisational influence and the significance of the changes throughout the ramp-up process.

This paper examines the complexity of the ramp-up organisational dependencies including the interactions across different functions and analyses the degree of fragmentation in the process planning and execution. Resource dependence theory is used as a central explanatory framework for the formation of inter-organisational interdependencies throughout the planning and execution of the ramp-up activities and milestones (Pfeffer & Salancik, 2003). The study highlights and explores the connections between the inter-firm resource dependence during production initiation

and specifically its influence upon the effectiveness of manufacturing ramp-up. Symmetries that have been identified, in addition to potential exploitation or opportunistic risks can be found.

Further work can be done with the aim of examining how knowledge and relationship factors grow and interact in joint innovation projects between organisations. The findings of the research presented in this paper relate to both theory development and managerial implications.

7.1. Contribution to the literature

Resource dependence theory is applied to the phenomenon of production launch and problem solving. Albeit neither manufacturing ramp-up, nor the RDT framework are particularly new research topics, the combined scientific evidence on the process is rather scarce. Empirical studies on ramp-up management is largely focused on automotive and hardware industries and the current state of literature, as well as the identified challenges of manufacturing ramp-up cases in the MedTech industry, serves as a justification for this research.

This paper addresses the challenges of the manufacturing ramp-up’s inter-organisational dependencies and focuses on the empirical analysis thereof, in the context of inter-functional involvement. The research has been carried out by studying organisational mitigation during the execution of six ramp-up projects.

The argument put forth in this study, is to better understand reliance and power balance among functional managers and fragmented project participants in executing the critical phase of ramping-up, we must distinguish between the degrees of changes, which we have demonstrated through operationalising RDT. To manage the organisation’s resource dependence in the environment, the RDT explains the organisational process models. We have also demonstrated that managers create and select procedures that mitigate relations in the environment and seek relations that create favourable exchanges.

The difficulties of managing ramp-up process occur when the manager has multiple objectives, the question becomes how does he transform the process from a complicated and in principle describable process into a complex system? Given that the ramp-up manager cannot identify all the objectives, the assumption is therefore the consequential managerial effects.

We look at managerial opportunity, engagement and effort, in order to understand how ramp-up process can be linked to its wider network. Rather than looking at the process as an

optimization pursuit, it transfers to a researchable purpose of how different types of interest can be aligned.

7.2. Managerial strategies for dealing with dependence

This study explored a number of issues that address the way a ramp-up engineer or manager conducts him/herself through the complexities of organisation’s resource dependence in the environment. In this way, The RDT explained the organisational process models. This study has also showed that managers create and select procedures that mitigate relations in the environment and seek relations that create favourable exchanges.

The closure of this paper is derived by an influential book chapter by Voss et.al. (2016) who in section 5.9.3 propose hypothesis generation as the aim and the output of case research. We follow these guidelines and propose the following five strategies, which might help reconfigure pre-existing assumptions, avoid or reduce the dependencies within and outside the organisation:

1. Stockpiling strategy: this is concerned with controlling the inputs and the outputs released to the volume manufacturing sites, which can be seen as a passive response. The challenge is that ramp-up production significantly depends on inter-functional involvement, but that an expert resource is not always available.

2. Levelling strategy: it is concerned with controlling the input-output ratio, which can be seen as an active involvement by reaching out into the environment and providing the organisation with inputs about ramp-up production capacity requirements.

3. Forecasting strategy: If environmental fluctuations cannot be managed by stockpiling or levelling, the ramp-up function might have to adapt by anticipating or forecasting volume production launch or market launch and how the changes made to the product or process should not result in further delays.

4. Scale adjustments strategy: This does not jeopardize the core of the ramp-up production site, but rather it manages its size.

5. Shaping dependence relations strategy: This choice can be achieved through bridging actions, which can be done through negotiations with other organisations, exchanging resources with them, pooling resources across them, or by performing mergers and absorbing another firm in its own entirety.

Appendix 1

Data Sources –March 2013 and October 2016

Source Frequencies Total

Interviewees

 CEO 2

 Executive VP, Global Operations 5

 VP Pilot, Ramp-up & Machine Transfer Every 4-5 weeks 28

 Project managers 22

 Product Development managers 6

 Supply Chain Managers 3

 Machine and raw material Suppliers 1

Archival records

 Strategy presentations & white papers

 Contractual agreements with suppliers

 Meeting minutes Observations

 Strategy meetings Quarterly 8

 Board of directors’ meetings Every 4-6 weeks 25

 Core group meetings Weekly 30

 Observations in office (4-6 hours/day) Sporadic 141

 Social events Annually 5

The total number of interviewees is 67; Archival records totalled 58, and observations 209

Appendix 2

Main planned actions - Project Stage: Ramp-up

Activities details Activity/milestone Activities ownership Various employee health and safety

assessment activities

Activity Employee health and safety management 1. Stop time analysis

2. Standard Work 3. 6S

4. Scrap analysis 5. Root Cause

Activity Lean management

Handover between launch and production support

Activity Logistics management

1. Project risk assessment

2. Monitoring of Production Output during Ramp-Up

3. Six Sigma 4. Weekly reporting

5. Ramp-Up Project Agreement 6. Project GTG

7. Resource plan 8. Project plan

9. Sign off meeting (Entry 3 Preparation => Ramp-Up phase) 10. Open Change Requests (CR) 11. Training of operators/skill workers 12. Training in product understanding

(Quality)

13. Evaluate production flow 14. Project Evaluation

Activity Project Management

Ramp-up Production Launch

Milestone Project Management Project Evaluation (Entry 4)

Project Evaluation (Entry 5)