Strategic information management in global manufacturing

Responding to new forces on the competitive landscape, global manufacturing companies are restructuring corporate cultures, organizational cofigurations and management coordination channels and styles. The emergence of flexibility as a prime competitive parameter for manufacturing is paralleled by companies shifting toward flexible, adaptive structures. A major challenge is to develop and deploy information technologies linking organizational subgroups for a streamlines process of new product/service creation and delivery. This article describes the convergence of information management and manufacturing activities over the past 30 years and suggests what the future will hold.