One more time, it is not about cost!

• Author: Mikko Ketokivi
• Date: 01 March 2017
• Published date: 01 March 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jom.2017.01.004

Editor's Introduction

One more time, it is not about cost!

abstract

In this JOM Forum article, published in conjunction with the Special Issue on Manufacturing in the High-

Cost Environment, two operations management heavyweights Richard Schonber ger and Karen Brown

examine the missing link between manufacturing research and practice.

©2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In 1969, manufacturing strategy pioneer Wickham Skinner

wrote about the missing link between an organization's strategy

and its operations. In this provocative Forum essay, Richard Schon-

berger and Karen Brown argue that this gap is still very much a re-

ality in that both academics and practitioners tend to subscribe to

an overly narrow view of operations. In a nutshell, there is still

too much focus on efficiency. This is made worse by inconsistent

use of terminology e“the terminology jungle”ethat often obfus-

cates the key issues and debates.

This Forum article is published in conjunction with the Special

Issue on Competitive Manufacturing in a High-Cost Environment

because it provocatively proposes that an excessive focus on costs

effectively transforms cost into the default competitive priority. A

case in point: why do we speak and write about “low-cost environ-

ments”? Why is one particular performance dimension privileged

like this in our conversations about the geography of

manufacturing? Has anyone ever written about “high-responsive-

ness environments”? Why not?

The task of the operations function is often taken as a given and

unchanging. But, in uncertain environments, both task and its

boundary conditions change over time estatic and dynamic effi-

ciency are very different things. Like Skinner wrote on multiple oc-

casions throughout his career, we must not conceive of operations

as a perfunctory task ean immediate candidate for outsourcing

and offshoring. Rather, it often belongs to the organizational and

strategic core of the firm, and as such must remain strategically

relevant over time. If the objectiveis to remain in sync with chang-

ing markets, outsourcing and offshoring may well be the worst de-

cision imaginable. Understanding concurrent production,

Schonberger and Brown argue, may be a way out of the impasse.

Sadly, Karen Brown passed away before the publication of this

article. With the publication of this article, the entire editorial

team of the Journal of Operations Management wishes to celebrate

Karen's legacy and contributions to the field of operations manage-

ment. Karen also served as an Associate Editor of the journal for

over 20 years; hundreds of JOM authors have benefited from her

wisdom, channeled to them in the dozens upon dozens of reviews

and AE assignments she completed for us. In this paper with

Richard Schonberger,we are privileged to benefit from Karen's wis-

dom and insights one more time.

Mikko Ketokivi, Editor

IE Business School eIE University, Spain

E-mail address: Mikko.Ketokivi@ie.edu.

Available online 26 January 2017

DOI of original article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jom.2016.12.006.

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Operations Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jom

Journal of Operations Management 49-51 (2017) 82

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jom.2017.01.004

0272-6963/©2017Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.