Setting manufacturing strategy for a factory-within-a-factory

In this paper, we are interested in the levels of cost, quality, delivery, and flexibility that manufacturing provides for each product family it produces. This is determined primarily by a company's factories-within-a-factory (FWFs) and so the level of analysis in this paper is the FWF. We identify and examine five manufacturing strategy objects (production systems, manufacturing outputs, manufacturing levers, manufacturing capability, competitive analysis), linkages between these objects, and the manufacturing strategy framework for an FWF that follows from these objects and linkages. We apply the framework to the FWFs of two multi-national companies. This paper is descriptive and exploratory. Strategy objects, linkages, and framework are presented and their use is illustrated. The work of rigorous empirical analysis is left for future research.