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It has been almost 25 years since the focused factory concept was first introduced by Skinner [17]. Since that time there has been general agreement on the validity of the focus approach, but confusion about what constitutes focus in a manufacturing plant exists. The general premise is that a plant can achieve superior performance by concentrating its resources on accomplishing one task, rather than addressing multiple demands. Some have narrowed the definition to a "product focus," meaning a limited set of products manufactured in a given facility.
Little empirical support has been provided for the factory focus concept. And there has been little success in trying to quantify a manufacturing plant's degree of focus. That becomes particularly troublesome when an attempt is made to develop a methodology across different types of industries.
This research reports results of a study that first asked respondents whether they considered their manufacturing plant a "focused factory." Then structural differences and performance differences between focused and nonfocused plants were identified and discussed.
FOCUSED FACTORIES
The foundation for the focus concept was provided by Skinner [16] when he described how top management had failed to recognize the strategic importance of manufacturing and how differing marketing requirements force plants to chase conflicting objectives. According to Skinner, "what is not always realized is that different marketing strategies and approaches to gaining a competitive advantage place different demands on the manufacturing arm of the company" [16]. He proposed that companies define a manufacturing strategy in terms of specific manufacturing tasks. Firms should then develop a broad manufacturing policy by determining how the company should be set up to match the resources, economics, and technology needed to meet the required tasks.
In his article on the focused factory [17], Skinner discussed the potential benefits of focusing the manufacturing organization. By focusing on a "limited task for one set of customers" a plant "can become a competitive weapon because its entire apparatus is focused to accomplish the particular manufacturing task demanded by the company's overall strategy and marketing objective" [17]. Skinner did not provide a formal definition of a focused factory, but a key element of his focus concept was that plant operations should be concerned with a "limited, concise, manageable set of products, technologies,...