To successfully implement strategic initiatives, plant-level executives need to be fully engaged and be part of the strategy formation process. Effective communication during all phases from strategy through implementation is of utmost importance. PWC found that only 3.3 percent of all manufacturers consider themselves world class. Those that claim to be of such high caliber are much farther ahead than others in implementing various enabling technologies such as EDI and the Web. These techniques are reducing customer lead-time and improving customer response time.
Most manufacturers are surprisingly far behind in many basic techniques.
Only 14 percent of all other manufacturers are using a pull system. Fourteen percent of world class companies are using competitive benchmarking, a technique that is used by less than 9 percent of all other manufacturers. Cellular manufacturing is used by 41 percent of the best companies, and only 18 percent of the remainder. You see that they really don't perform well and the metrics are out there screaming at them. But they just ignore them.