Table 6.2 and 6.3 provides a classification of the companies involved in the case study research. As stated in chapter 1, the usage of the MTO label covers many different types o f company from ETOl to M T05, and so this taxonomy can be a useful way o f determining the differences/similarities between the particular companies investigated in this study. Note that in table 6.2, the core activities are used to determine the types of company. For example in company F, the customers may provide 90% o f the design and specification while the company provided another 10%. Even though the company provided 10% o f the design and specification, this portion is small and the classification o f the company types is only based on its major activities.
Table 6.2; Classification o f the MTO Companies based on the Amaro et al. (1999) Taxonomy
Companies
Customisation Responsibility for
Pure Tailored Standard
Design Specification Purchasing Customer Company Customer Company Customer Company
A / / / B / /
y
/ C /y
/ D / / / E /y
y
Fy
y
Com pany Activities A fter Receipt of O rd e r
Companies Delivery Assembly Processing Purchasing Routing Specification Design
A / / / /
y
By
/ / /y
y
Cy
/ / / Dy
/ / /y
Ey
/ / /y
y
Fy
/ /y
“The term design refers to the basic idea o f the product, often a rough se t o f draw in gs. S pecification s mean the set o f d e ta ile d draw in gs to support production and also the list o f both technical requ irem en ts a n d o f m aterials to use. R outin gs m eans the definition o f the actual path the p ro d u ct w ill fo llo w in the sh op flo o r : which m achin es to use in w hich sequence. ” (Amaro et al. (1999)).
The six companies involved in the case study research can be classified as follow:
1. Company A; Based on information in Table 6.2, the company can be classified as ET03. It is a VMC because every customer’s order is consider as an individual independent buying decision.
2. Company B; As shown in Table 6.2, Company B is M TO l. It is categorised as VMC because the company also has to determine a price and a delivery lead-time to quote as an individual bid in response to each customer enquiry.
3. Company C; Table 6.2 shows that Company C can be classified as MT02. Categorised as VMC, every order is consider as an individual independent buying decision and the company needs to compete every time it receives customer order.
4. Company D; Based on information in Table 6.2, Company D can be classified as ET03. Categorised as RBC, the company is involved with a bidding process for a long-term contract with several delivery dates agreed with customers.
5. Company E; As shown in Table 6.2, Company D is classified as M TOl. Categorised as both VMC and RBC because the company deals with both markets, individual independent customers and long-term contract supply with its main customers.
6. Company F; Table 6.2 shows that Company D can be classified as ET03. Categorised as RBC, most of the transactions are with 12 regular customers. The
customer will place repeated orders with the company based on the agreement made during an initial purchase decision.
Table 6.3 shows the six types of companies involved in the study. Table 6.3 also shows that the company activities can be divided into two types o f market, VMC and RBC.
Table 6.3: Types o f MTO companies
Classification El
ro2
Elro3
Elro4
Mrro i
Mrro
2Sm all M edium Sm all M edium Sm all M ediu m Sm all M ediu m Sm all M ediu m
VMC
A
Bc
RBC D&F
RBC/VMC E
6.7.1 The replication logic
It is thought by some authors, such as Yin (1993), that it is important to try to choose case study companies that are expected to give similar results, that is companies that will replicate results. Yin (1993) claims that this can prevent subjective bias because the findings are supported by a chain of evidence from different companies and are therefore more convincing. “If such replications are indeed found for several cases, you can have more confidence in the overall results” (Yin 1993).
In this research, similar results were sought by trying to study companies that were considered to be “good” companies. Ideally, WCM companies would have been chosen, but as no WCM definition exists, it is not possible to choose ‘WCM’ companies. Instead, we looked at well established companies, all o f which have been
around for more than 20 years, and which have remained similar in size or experienced growth in recent years. These are reasonable indicators that these are “good” companies with forward looking personnel. In addition, all six companies are in the MTO sector and so this should lead to some degree o f confirmation o f results.
However, as stated earlier, the MTO sector is itself quite complex and it was decided that the research would be too narrow if it concentrated on six companies all in the same group, that is all in one box in Table 6.3. This would not enable the research to explore the question raised in chapter 1, as to whether one model is sufficient to address all the companies in the MTO sector. Therefore, choosing a range of companies, as summarised in Table 6.3, was thought to give enough variety to explore this issue, though of course they in no way represent sampling units o f the MTO sector population. In analysing the results, it will be important to determine whether the evidence from one company confirms that from another or conflicts. Where the latter occurs, it will be important to bear in mind the differences i.e. between small and medium, VMC and RBC and so on, as these characteristics may explain any conflicts in the evidence found.
6.8. Conclusion
This chapter has described the six case study companies, explaining that there are two small companies and four medium sized; three are VMC, two are RBC whilst one is a mixture o f VMC and RBC; in terms of Amaro’s (1999) classification, three are ET 03, two are MTOl and one is an M T02 company. This range o f companies was thought to be necessary to explore the issue of whether one model is adequate to
cover the variety of company types within the MTO sector. However, despite the range, it is argued that the replication logic is used in the research in the sense that the companies are all “good” companies and are all in the MTO sector.
In carrying out the research, the two small companies were studied first. The results of these studies are grouped together in the next chapter, Chapter 7, as the results of these two studies were indeed very similar. Chapter 8 then discusses the medium sized companies. It was felt that by grouping the companies in one o f the dimensions in which they are different, this would help to highlight any reasons for which conflicting results arise, if indeed there are any conflicts.