A taxonomy of manufacturing strategies revisited

While our field has done commendable work putting forward new ideas in operations strategy, we have historically done a less effective job validating concepts after their introduction. Given this issue, we attempted to test and extend one of the most influential OM configurations - Miller and Roth's [Management Science 40 (1994) 285] taxonomy of manufacturing strategies. Their taxonomy was longitudinally replicated with a newer set of North America Manufacturing Futures data as well as an entirely different global sample. Our replications partially supported Miller and Roth's taxonomy of three strategy-types (Caretakers, Marketeers, and Innovators), but found no evidence of the two underlying dimensions of manufacturing strategy that they called market scope and differentiation. Interestingly, the Marketeers were replaced in the 1990s by a new strategy called Designers, and three other unique manufacturing strategies were identified in the global data. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V All rights reserved.