Editorial viewpoint

Citation

Almgren, B. (2011), "Editorial viewpoint", Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol. 22 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/jmtm.2011.06822baa.001

Editorial viewpoint

Article Type: Editorial viewpoint From: Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Volume 22, Issue 2

In 1983, a dream came true when I brought my family from Sweden to Britain. At the time, I worked for a management consultancy firm called Indevo, and they had decided to set up shop in London to be closer to the market after a few successful projects in the British Isles. During the previous spring, while still in Sweden, I had worked on a project for a Scottish company with a colleague from Wales. Before that, I had some close contact in England with people from academia focusing on operations management. In other words, I had, in different ways, been influenced by all three countries of Great Britain when I decided to become both an emigrant and an immigrant; my situation changed in the middle of the North Sea onboard a ferry between Gothenburg and Harwich.

A few years earlier, in 1980 to be precise, I had collaborated with David Bennett (Editor of Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management (JMTM)) on a research project. He had been with Aston University for some years and I was with Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg. The idea was to study Production Management in Sweden, because at that time the manufacturing sector had been a major contributor to the country’s economic growth. By visiting eight companies in various industries, the intention was to generate discussion and provide a greater understanding of the technical and organisational factors that influence the efficiency of production systems.

As I am writing this Editorial viewpoint for JMTM, we are less than 48 hours from visiting the same companies again in a follow-up project exactly 30 years later, together with two new people from Chalmers. Believe it or not, the eight companies we studied in 1980 still exist after all these years. The question is: have they grown older and wiser, as David and I have, or are they still young and impulsive?

The main purpose of our retrospective study is to explore the factors contributing to survival and continued competitiveness of manufacturing companies in traditional industrial economies. Recent years have seen dramatic changes to where manufacturing activities take place, with a shift from the industrialised nations to the developing and transition economies.

In the last 30 years, Sweden’s situation has been threatened due to its traditional dependence on energy-intensive industries, its social system that has adversely affected labour costs, and emerging competition from both newly developing economies in Asia as well as neighbouring transition economies across the Baltic Sea. Despite these threats, Sweden has maintained a strong economy and still remains among the top ten in the world in terms of GDP per capita. At the same time, its manufacturing sector has made a relatively larger contribution to its wealth, having moved from number 12 in 1980 (measured by manufacturing value added per capita) to number six by 2003, while in the same period the UK’s position has remained almost unchanged.

Among the things we will explore is how international collaboration and research is vital to develop and spread good ideas in manufacturing and other disciplines that contribute to the survival and competitiveness of companies. We will also look at how mobility of labour across national boundaries, as well as within countries, is important to keep companies alive. We look forward to reporting the findings of our new study in a future issue of JMTM.

About the author

Bengt Almgren graduated from Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, with a Master’s degree in Industrial Management. Bengt Almgren moved into management consultancy after some time working at Chalmers as an Assistant Professor. He is now based in the UK and works as an independent consultant as well as with the consulting company SolvingEfeso.

Bengt Almgren