e to three key principles (Womack et al., 1990; Womack and Jones, 1996) Improving flow of material and information across business functions; An emphasis on customer pull rather than organisation push (enabled on the shop floor with Kanban) and; A commitment to continuous improvement enabled by people development. The TKA global mission and objectives generate strategic alternatives, and strategy should help determine the structural characteristics of the organization. The results of this funnelling process vary, as there is no universal global strategy or structure.Flexibility underlies successful global strategy (Wortzel, 1991).“The key is to constantly identify and to capitalize on new sources of competitive advantage, and to be faster and more adept at identifying and implementing opportunities for change. Taking advantage of the opportunities requires … flexible strategy” (Wortzel, 1991, p. 366).7:0HRM Parallel Business ObjectivesThis section highlights the relationship between the functional areas of manufacturing and human resources by analysing the practices of human resource management associated with the competitive priorities of manufacturing strategy, e.g. quality, delivery performance, flexibility and cost. Within strategic business management, both the competitive priorities of our manufacturing and the practices of human resource management need to be observed by the whole organisation. In this way, TKA shows how human resource management practices are aligned to business strategies based on cost reduction, quality, and delivery performance and product innovation. These practices may also be arranged in different ways in a particular competitive strategy.7:1Competitive Priorities Of Manufacturing StrategyAmong several approaches of competitive strategies (Hayes and Wheelwright, 1984; Slack et al., 1995), the following are adopted (Pires, 1995): Costs, which means seeking...
