Strategic consensus on manufacturing strategy: operators\u27 and managers\u27 perceptions

This paper joins the discussion on the need for trade-offs among competitive priorities inmanufacturing strategy (MS) and builds on earlier works on strategic consensus on MSby addressing the purpose to examine the level of strategic consensus between differentorganisational levels regarding the competitive priorities quality, delivery, flexibility andcost. Survey data from 96 employees at one Swedish assembly plant show that theemployees rank the priorities significantly different. Further, white collar workers ranksix of the 16 studied competitive priority abilities significantly higher than blue collarworkers do