Purpose: This study explores how industrial production companies adjust implementation strategies to deliver value with their company-specific production system (XPS) in a multi-site setting. Implementing an XPS is part of operations management and is supposed to mobilise employees resource-efficiently to increase operational performance. Design/methodology/approach: Based on a multiple-case study, this study qualitatively explores the patterns of implementation decisions within and between five multi-site production companies. Conclusions were drawn on a mix of timely and retrospective data gathered through individual interviews with senior managers and joint workshops where they interacted and shared experiences. Findings: This study identifies the fact that companies respond differently to non-unique implementation challenges, constituting various decision patterns when implementing their XPS. This paper identifies four implementation strategies (Education, Tool, Pragmatic and Culture Strategy) that explain various implementation setups. More experienced companies frequently shifted between strategies to return to previously de-prioritised implementation aspects. Originality/value: This paper offers a dynamic model for XPS implementation in contrast to a simplified tool–system–culture sequence in literature today. Companies that deliberately shift implementation strategy by understanding the benefits and challenges of their decisions are more likely to keep momentum in the XPS implementation.

Purpose: This paper aims to explore and describe how companies manage the level of standardisation of improvement practices in a multisite context. It seeks to explain the managerial strategies applied to change the standardisation level in manufacturing companies with multiple production sites worldwide. Design/methodology/approach: This paper reports from a case based on data collected through semi-structured interviews, participant observations and company documents from a large multinational producing company and, specifically, from of the largest production sites in the company. The research design resembles a grounded theory approach by being reflexive and open to emerging themes. The standardisation strategy was analysed at a company that strived to increase the standardisation of problem-solving practices within about 20 production sites as part of their corporate lean programme. Findings: Several managerial tools were applied at the corporate level to increase the standardisation level of problem-solving practices, such as developing standards and a company-specific toolbox aligned with an in-house maturity model. In addition, deploying change leaders and global implementation targets enabled audits and progress. However, consequences at the production-site level became minor adaptations of standards, the design of training models as a “roll-out”, and a resource-demanding implementation process. Originality/value: This paper empirically demonstrates strategic tools that corporate management teams apply to influence the company’s standardisation level of practices. The study describes the purpose and consequences of the design of the toolbox, maturity model, training model, and implementation targets, which aims to simplify the complex task of managing standardisation in a corporate group. By applying a knowledge-based view, four processes (i.e. adaptation, integration, upskilling, and learning) were identified to improve the management strategies in multisite contexts.

In the context of increasing pressure for sustainable production practices, this paper proposes a framework for how production companies could operationalise circular economy principles. The focus is on the production organisation, and how production operations could contribute to strategic circularity change. Prior research has used the Green kaizen methodology to identify environmental aspects and circularity related to the input-output flow of resources at the production shop floor. However, this paper finds that a more comprehensive approach is required, involving all levels of the production organisation. First, the paper defines circular production principles for production operations, showing that these principles vary across different company levels. Operations and shop floor level principles tend to be closer to the production input-output system, whereas factory management level principles are more focused on information sharing and internal and external relations. The circular production principles followed a hierarchical organisational structure with a bottom-up drive, where the allocation of organisational resources increased as the level of the hierarchy increased. The study reveals parallels with Likert's management system, where green kaizen activities are suitable for the shop floor level, but business development requires authority exploitation. Secondly, the paper identifies four circularity impact factors that apply to all company levels. These factors enhance the practical utility and implementation of circularity aspects, making them applicable to all levels of the company. The framework for bottom-up escalation of circular production principles can be used as a roadmap or support for managing a circularity bottom-up transition work. The findings presented in this paper fill a knowledge gap regarding the organisational and managerial work required for circular production. Specifically, this paper addresses challenges related to circular production management, including the gap between strategic targets and operational-driven work. By proposing a comprehensive framework for operationalising circular production principles, this paper offers practical guidance for production companies seeking to transition to circular economy practices.

Despite the availability of various tools, practitioners often lack a holistic perspective when conducting sustainability-related improvement activities. Existing Value Stream Mapping (VSM) tools that incorporate environmental aspects suffer from a lack of standardization and limited alignment with sustainability reporting standards. This paper introduces a framework for VSM that integrates sustainability indicators to assess and enhance the triple-bottom-line performance of manufacturing processes aligned with the global reporting initiative (GRI) standards. We validate the proposed framework through a case study conducted in a biopharmaceutical production system of a small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) that employs single-use technologies. The study highlights the critical need for collaboration with equipment suppliers to develop production specifications considering operational performance and environmental impact, thereby capturing a comprehensive perspective. By utilizing the proposed framework, practitioners can identify opportunities for improving the design and efficiency of production systems. The case study provides valuable insights into SMEs’ challenges when transitioning to sustainable production, particularly when product-related requirements impose limitations on sustainability improvements. Although the framework's validation focuses on a biopharmaceutical SME, it can be applied to manufacturing companies across industries to assess and enhance all three aspects of sustainability in their processes.

This study explores how human-centered digitalization can contribute to the flexibility and adaptability of small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) production processes, resulting in more resilient systems. This study explains the relationship between digital technologies and production system features through progressively more human-centric stages of a digitalized manufacturing system. The authors present a case study of an SME that implemented a human-centric strategy, placing people's needs and interests at the center of its processes, leading to more flexible and inclusive production processes and consistent with the goals of Industry 5.0. The results suggest that a digitalized working method that considers human capabilities and needs can enable a more diverse workforce and the rapid setup of new and additional production processes, thus helping SMEs respond to supply chain disruptions. The findings have implications for managers and practitioners interested in driving or supporting the transition of SMEs to human-centric, resilient, and sustainable businesses.

The concept of environmentalism is constantly growing as new customer demands and regulations are introduced. Preventive measures on production system design are lacking as the environment is being overlooked in capital investment projects of production equipment and systems. The objective of this study was to explore the need for environmental sustainability in capital investment projects and develop a methodology to implement resource efficiency and circularity. It is identified that the design phase of capital investment projects has a great opportunity for decreasing environmental impact in future operations. However, strategy deployment of environmental sustainability to project level is lacking, justifying the urgency for additional environmental approaches. The Green Design methodology developed introduces environmental sustainability to capital investment projects by utilizing several green-lean and circular tools. The tools are applied through identifying, evaluating, implementing, and follow-up on environmental improvements.

Startups have to deal with scarce resources to be acquired from elsewhere and tight requirements to advance their innovative ideas. This study explores production competence as a reflection of a missing link from conception to efficient industrialization and the scale-up in hardware startups. The study was conducted as a qualitative case study consisting of an investigation of fourteen startups. Hardware startups working on discrete product technologies lack the technical competence, strategy, facilities, and functions to adequately address production issues. This implies that their challenges in managing and executing industrialization and scale-up activities impact viability and competitiveness of the ventures. Skinners’ missing link analogy has been used to understand the phenomenon faced by hardware startups.

This paper explores the concept of green design in the context of production, focusing on investment projects for production equipment design and acquisition by a manufacturing firm. Research towards making manufacturing and production related activities more sustainable is increasing. In the manufacturing sector, environmental sustainability tends to be more commonly approached from the operations perspective. However, the decisions taken in the design phase of the production equipment significantly impact the operations phase. Therefore, proactive design approaches for sustainability applied in product design settings could be transferred to the design of the production equipment to build in green aspects from the outset. This study explores the research questions of what green production equipment design entails and how the concept of green design has evolved in the context of production. Overall, this conceptual paper highlights the importance of incorporating green design principles from the outset of the production design. Transferable methodological issues are also explored for further detailed investigation in the production equipment design context. Strong collaboration between equipment suppliers and the buying manufacturer that aims to integrate sustainability as part of requirements is proposed as an enabler for the way forward. The paper also provides insights into the evolution of the concept in this context for possible future research.

Automotive small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) suppliers are important players in many national economies. They are currently facing increased pressure to manage the undergoing, demanding changes in the automotive industry. One proposed way for the firms to manage is to introduce Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies in their production, but for this to happen the firms need to consider such technologies in their strategic work. In this study, insights were gathered through interviews with representatives from 24 SME durable goods suppliers within automotive in Sweden, to find out what role I4.0 technologies play in their business-level strategic work. The findings show that these firms do not seem to consider the introduction of I4.0 technologies in production in their strategic work. The firms also do not include any other kind of long-term improvement programs in production in their strategizing. This goes against recommendations from several prior studies, which have emphasized the importance of I4.0 technologies in production for the future competitiveness of automotive SME suppliers. This study contributes to the discussion on how automotive SME suppliers can use I4.0 technologies strategically in their production, by being the first to empirically investigate the role of production in these firms' strategic work.