Comparing manufacturing and control practices in Europe and Korea

This paper presents a comparison of the manufacturing planning and control practices between firms in South Korea and Europe in the non-fashion textile and small machine tool industries. The key differences in practice were found in the details of forecasting and production planning, the market influence on shop-floor activities, the organizational level used in planning and control, and the level of sophistication in terms of computers and techniques used. The implications of these findings are important for firms with plans to enter into joint ventures or other cooperative arrangements. The data used in this study are from a large data base of actual manufacturing practices collected from countries around the world.