Manufacturing missions and institutionalised signalling systems: are they congruent?

A major collaborative research consortium has been investigating some of the human factors issues that relate to manufacturing strategy implementation. One of the key objectives of the consortium has been defined as: `the development of a methodology which can be used to assess the level of congruence between the firm´s manufacturing missions, as defined by the manufacturing strategy, and its institutionalised signalling systems, such as goal setting, performance measurement, information feedback and reward. An initial version of this methodology has been developed and is being piloted in two of the eight collaborating companies. Early results from this work appear to be very promising and the basic frameworks used in the methodology are presented and explained. It is believed that this methodology will be useful for two reasons. Firstly it can be used as an audit tool to examine if the existing goal setting, performance measurement, information feedback and reward systems encourage actions which are in conflict with the firm´s manufacturing missions. Second the methodology provides a framework which could be used to help firms design institutionalised signalling systems that are congruent with the manufacturing strategies that they plan to pursue