The list of interested and potential case firms was eight. Out of these eight, alto-gether five case firms had to be disqualified. Three of them did not pass the set criteria described in Section 4.2. The other two did pass the set criteria but failed to deliver data accurate enough before the set data delivery deadline. With the ones which did qualify, applicable non-disclosure agreements (NDA) were made due the nature of the sensitive discussions and data. It was agreed that neither actual figures nor firm or product names would be shown in the case study. In-stead, names would be changed and sensitive figures indexed. Thus, the names and figures in this case study are disguised to protect sensitive data and the names of the case firms.
5.1.1 Mighty Machines
The first case firm, Mighty Machines, fit the set criteria perfectly. For the select-ed products and product families, Mighty Machines was operating on an engi-neer-to-order (ETO) basis. It had been profitable consistently for the past several years. It also had not made any major changes to the products, production lines or to the order delivery process of the selected product and product lines during the scope set for the study. Thus, all the prerequisites for acquiring the needed order delivery related data for statistically relevant analysis existed.
The acquired data from Mighty Machines contained a little more than 360 order delivery transactions from two production lines and from four customer segments.
The structure of the Mighty Machines order delivery and financial data was used as the pilot. The template for acquiring data from other case firms was based on the data structure from Mighty Machines. The studied products at Mighty
Ma-chines consisted of similar components which were produced in two similar pro-duction lines, Alfa and Beta. Alfa had 266 order delivery transactions and Beta had 95. Overall, these two production lines produced very similar products for two different customer segments.
5.1.2 Power Control
The second case firm, Power Control, was also found suitable for the criteria set for the research. Power Control was operating on a make-to-order (MTO) basis. It had been profitable long enough to be part of the study. The product family cho-sen for the research had remained the same and the order delivery process for the concerned product family had not been changed radically. Some minor modifica-tions had been conducted to the manufacturing processes, which limited the time scope slightly.
The acquired data from Power Control included close to 300 order delivery trans-actions from three customer segments. Segments A, B and C all purchased the same product. Typically, the product type in the study had a lot of variations.
These variations were mainly made with different key component setups and con-figurations. Thus, a significant share of the engineering was done by key compo-nent suppliers, which in many cases had to engineer the key compocompo-nent to fit the customer specification.
Unfortunately, the case firm Power Control was rather more challenging than the other case firms in the sense that there were not enough order delivery cases for all levels of analysis to conduct statistically relevant analysis. Power Control had gone through a renewal process with the selected product. In practice, this meant that the study had to work with a fraction of the data available. Naturally, this decision limited the number of orders to be studied from this case firm. For in-stance, the limited number of cases prevented statistically relevant analyses for testing the third research question. Secondly, a deeper analysis of the processing times in different processes and functions was limited. This was due to fact that the data had only the order and received dates. Nevertheless, this case firm was able to provide the obligatory data and had enough reported order deliveries for a high level analysis.
5.1.3 Agile Grid
The third case unit, Agile Grid, was the last firm that delivered the required data on time and met the qualification criteria set for the research. Agile Grid fit the research criteria perfectly. At the same time, it fulfilled the whole spectrum of build-to-order (BTO) manufacturing strategies with assembly-to-order (ATO).
The products and product families, together with production practices, had re-mained the same long enough for Agile Grid to qualify for the case study.
The acquired data from the Agile Grid had more than 1400 reported order deliv-ery transactions. These orders covered a two year period of order delivdeliv-ery transac-tions for selected countries. Due to the high number of transactransac-tions reported, the data could be divided and analyzed at several levels. The data included three dif-ferent countries, nine difdif-ferent customers and seven customer segments. This al-lowed closer and more reliable statistical analyses among different groups provid-ing valuable information for the study.
Another positive aspect of the extensive number of reported order delivery trans-actions over the two year period was the possibility to split the data into two time periods. Splitting the data in this way enabled the internal and external changes to be studied in more detail. These periods are later in the doctoral dissertation re-ferred to as the first period and second period.
5.1.4 Summary of description of the case firms
Although all the case firms fit the selection criteria, still they were all different in many perspectives. All the products produced and analyzed in the selected firms were different. Physically, the product sizes varied from the size of an elephant to the size of a cat. Prices for the products varied from a few hundred to several thousand. Customer order delivery lead times varied from a few weeks to several months. One of the main differences was that each one of the case firms and their product families operated with different strategic order penetration points.
Figure 11. Customer order penetration points (COPPs) for the case firms (modi-fied from Tersine 1994).
All the case firms were considered to be manufacturing firms that were selling both directly and indirectly to end customers. For a large global enterprise like the one in this case study, a lot of business activities of the individual firms can be also focused in parallel or in a competitive matter on the same customers. This means that these firms can offer their products through several channels and di-rectly to the end customers. Figure 12 presents a generic model of how the case firms can offer their products directly or via different channels to end customers.
These channels include players like internal system integrators, local sales units, original equipment manufacturers (OEM), external (competing) system integra-tors or several combinations of them.
Despite the differences, these products can be found next to each other on the customers’ final applications. These products are present in power plants, pulp and paper plants, oil & gas rigs, luxury cruisers, mining sites, metal smelters and in several other business oriented applications. Ignoring the variety in size, price range, order delivery lead time, final destination, or customer order penetration point, they were all customized for individual customers who had diverging needs.
Mighty Machines
Engineer-to-Order
Power Control
Make-to-Order
Agile Grip
Assemble-to-Order
Make-to-Stock
Engineering Procurement Fabrication Assembly Delivery
Build-to-order (BTO) Build-to-stock (BTS)
Figure 12. Generic model for alternative paths for case unit products to end customers.