Production as a key factor for driving competitiveness in manufacturing industry

Abstract

The importance of small and medium sized companies as a leader for globalization has been recognized through various sources. One class of these companies is called the Hidden Champions. A Hidden Champion company thrives to operate as a global leader in a niche market. The competence factors of the hidden champion companies have been identified in a previous research conducted by Hermann Simon. The competence factors do not include or define the role of production or the production strategy. The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of the decision made in production strategy to correspond to the identified competence factors. This study includes a definition of the hid.