Supply input-output economics in process prioritisation of interdependent manufacturing systems

Currently, manufacturing firms strive not only to survive but also to remain competitive in their industries. To sustain competitive advantage, firms adopt various approaches to aid in their decision making processes. A crucial decision making area is on process prioritisation which attempts to identify areas that need to be given higher attention in terms of policy development, improvement efforts and resource allocation. Previous approaches addressing this concern have drawbacks which may lead to less reliable decisions. Thus, this study attempts to develop a methodological approach based on supply-driven input-output analysis that addresses process prioritisation in manufacturing process system level. The motivation behind the adoption of such approach lies in the strength of input-output analysis in understanding systems with interdependent components. This approach was applied to two manufacturing systems in different case firms. Results reported in this work include the identified key processes of both firms together with the process prioritisation ranking of other processes.