Strategies Used to Improve Industrial Companies' Production Quality

The advanced production systems based on modern managerial methods for the manufacturing process, including the systems that use artificial intelligence, impose new demands in the field of continuously improving the quality of the production process and products. This chapter deals with both theoretical aspects of the production quality and with the use of the Japanese management methods and techniques in the strategic management of quality. As of 1973, the original concept of Taguchi developed throughout the world, regarding the improvement of the production and product quality. This concept brings its contribution to the “quality loss” function, the quality begins from designing, training all collaborators, ensuring the quality in production, verifying the company's quality. The use of the Taguchi method is dealt with separately as a technique of the strategic management of industrial production quality.

Use of Systems Theory to Deal with Industrial Companies

The use of the systems theory in dealing with the industrial companies enables the use of cybernetics to this effect. This leads to considering the company as a cybernetic system, highlighting all the company's characteristics. This chapter is an application of the systems theory in the study of industrial companies. This chapter addresses issues such as the analysis of a company as “cybernetic system,” production system-“the company” cybernetic system relation, applying the systemic theory to analyse a company's functions, contemporary theories on a company's structure, and the full cycle of a company's operation. The chapter analyses how a company's activity can be controlled.

Interdependence Relation between Industrial Companies' Logistics and Commercial Strategies

Commercial strategy ensures the industrial company's competitiveness in the globalised market economy and is the main focus of this chapter. Commercial activity enables the industrial companies to sell their products and therefore recover their resources used to achieve the production. In this context, the logistics of the company's industrial activity has an important role. In terms of the strategic management theory, the following issues are dealt with in this chapter: involvement of logistics in companies' commercial relations; impact of logistics in organising the manufacturers-distributors-customers relations; logistics – pilot of distribution networks; improvement of service quality at the customer – consequence of logistics; defining the commercial logistics system; designing and planning the commercial logistics system; means to monitor companies' sales; system for monitoring the performances of companies' commercial activities; logistics – commercial strategies relations. All these forms of logistics contribute to preparing a commercial strategy of the efficient company.

Communication in the Process of Elaborating Strategies on Company Development

The development of any industrial company is based on the existence of a strategy of sustainable development, based on an appropriate communication. A theory of communication has been developed, which has led to the occurrence of a specific form of communication, namely the managerial communication. As such, this chapter deals with the study of the communication process and the importance of this process in the industrial companies' development processes. There are several models regarding the analyses of strategies in the industrial companies' portfolios. In this context, several Romanian industry development strategies have been identified in the transition period, such as: strategy of restructuring, strategy of development, global strategy, etc. The chapter discusses both the strategy of industrial companies' development under the current conditions in Romania and the identification of an appropriate portfolio of Romanian industrial companies' strategies.

Company Organisation under Current Globalisation

Under the current globalisation conditions, the existence and development of any industrial company depends on the type of formal and informal organisation that it adopts. This chapter analyses how the industrial companies are organised under the current global conditions. The structural organisation of any industrial company depends on a number of endogenous and exogenous factors, which leads to the existence of several forms of organisational structure also characterised by certain forms of communication. Under the conditions of current globalisation (industrial company's internal), the informal organisation is closely related to the formal organisation. The chapter concludes with the discussion of the advantages of the harmonisation of the formal structure with the informal structure within the industrial companies.

Companies' Operation Environments in a Global Economy

During the current period, the world economy is characterised by a process of globalisation, which implies that the national economy is part of the global economy, which it influences, but the latter also determines a certain trend of developing a national economy. In this context, industrial companies are part of the globalised economy, which determines a certain complexity in the development of any industrial company. This chapter is a systemic approach of the industrial company under the conditions of a globalised economic market. It deals with aspects relating to competitions and competitors, elements of companies' external environments, companies' internal environments and components, companies' ambiguous operating environments, etc. The end of the chapter analyses the decision-making process in industrial companies under the conditions given for them, namely in an ambiguous development environment.

Budgeting Technique of Strategic Management

The industrial companies' activities must take into account the existence of a balance between income and expenses. In this regard, the budget is the basic tool, and budgeting becomes a systemic economic practice in allocating the financial resources to achieve the objectives set forth by the company strategy. This chapter discusses budgeting as a technique of strategic management. In the companies' activities of budgeting, the following may be used: general and partial budgets; budgets prepared by departments; budgets prepared by products, projects, and activities; fixed and flexible budgets; etc. Thus, to start with, the fundamentals of budgets are analysed, and afterwards, based on them, industrial companies' budgets are elaborated. At the end of this chapter, the budgets thus elaborated are used as techniques of the industrial companies' strategic management.

Companies' Strategies

This chapter is an approach of the theory of strategies and strategic management, and it deals with issues such as companies' strategies and policies, companies' managerial strategies, companies' strategies systems, strategic alternatives and their classification, evaluation and control of strategies, stakeholders and their role in preparing companies' strategies, companies' sustainable development strategies, etc. The complexity of the industrial companies' activities and the different concepts of managers and management specialists have led to the existence of divergences on the concept of company policies and managerial strategies. All these opinions, however, differentiate the company policies from the company strategies. A special role is to prepare companies' sustainable development strategies, as the chapter points out that an industrial company can have sustainable development only if it has its own strategy regarding its development.

Use of Budgets to Elaborate the Strategy of Industrial Production Costs

The industrial companies' activities must take into account the existence of a balance between income and expenses. In this regard, the budget is the basic tool, and budgeting becomes a systemic economic practice in allocating the financial resources to achieve the objectives set forth by the company strategy. This chapter discusses budgeting as a technique of strategic management. In the companies' activities of budgeting, the following may be used: general and partial budgets; budgets prepared by departments; budgets prepared by products, projects, and activities; fixed and flexible budgets; etc. Thus, to start with, the fundamentals of budgets are analysed, and afterwards, based on them, industrial companies' budgets are elaborated. At the end of this chapter, the budgets thus elaborated are used as techniques of the industrial companies' strategic management.

Production Strategies of Companies in Machine Manufacturing Industry

In the portfolio of strategies of any industrial company, the production strategy occupies a central place. Preparing it is based on knowing well the technological process and its complexity. This chapter particularly studies the production strategies of the Romanian companies in the machine manufacturing industry (industrial machineries and equipment). It is recommended that the preparation of such a strategy would take into account the regional development strategy. In this context, the Advanced Production Strategies (APS) may successfully be used, which prefigure the transition to the machinist systems and then to systems based on artificial intelligence where an important role in preparing the production strategies is held by the systems based on artificial intelligence. The problem of elaborating some optimal strategic decisions is dealt with separately by using econometric models. In this context, the use of IT, respectively of expert systems, is essential in developing some very good strategies for industrial companies.