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Matthias Holweg Some Links: MIT International Motor Vehicle Program
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Massachusetts Institute of
Technology Center for Technology, Policy, and Industrial Development Email:holweg@mit.edu
Welcome to my MIT homepage! I have created this page to
provide a brief insight into my current research, recent publications and a
bit about my personal background. I am Research Affiliate based at MIT’s
Center for Technology, Policy, and Industrial Development, and member of the
faculty at the Judge Institute of Management at the For current contact details please
visit my webpage at the
Judge Institute of Management at the At MIT, I am a principal
investigator with the International Motor Vehicle Program
(IMVP), where my research primarily focuses on holistic supply chain
strategies, in particular the implementation of responsive manufacturing and
demand-driven supply chains. I simply want to understand why – despite ever
more efficient factories – many manufacturing systems still fail to produce
the products the customers want within reasonable lead-times; a problem I
find that not only applies to the car industry, yet also to many other
manufacturing sectors. Together with Prof. Frits Pil, a
fellow principal investigator of IMVP, we have just published a book on our
latest research on this issue, entitled “The
Second Century: Reconnecting Customer and Value Chain through
Build-to-Order”, with MIT Press. (Get it at Amazon)
In particular we found that, as the auto industry moves into its second
century, it suffers from low margins and a sclerotic value chain that
cannot evolve with customers’ desires. Inventories of many weeks pile up in
dealer lots and distribution centers around the world, while executives
applaud marginal improvements in factory efficiency. Value streams based on Henry
Ford's mass production model from the early 1900s do not deliver the
strategic flexibility needed in today’s increasingly competitive and
demanding market. With billions of potential product variations, customers
still compromise by selecting from a limited number of products sitting at
dealers or distribution centers. Those customers who dare insist on a
specific variation not only wait weeks but also pay extra for the privilege
of telling vehicle manufacturers what they actually want. In “The Second Century”, we provide a comprehensive look at the
dysfunctional nature of current value-chain strategies, then
systematically discuss the product and process changes needed to bring about
responsiveness to customer needs through build-to-order. We go beyond the
dealer, the factory and the design studio to understand the web of
relationships and dynamics that have brought the auto industry to its current
low point. We argue that the winners in this century will not be those who search for
larger and larger scale or those who run efficient factories and squeeze the
last drop of profitability from their suppliers. The winners, in our view,
will be those who build products as if
customers mattered. If you would like to discuss our research please do not hesitate to
contact us! Email Matthias
Holweg, email Frits Pil. Further Research At present, I am also working on
several projects evaluating the implications of build-to-order for vehicle
manufacturers, but equally important, for component suppliers and logistics
service providers. This includes,
inter alia, the role of modularity and supplier
parks, but also wider issues such as the impact of product variety and
understanding customer expectations – an important aspect that is often
neglected. As much as possible, I try to think in holistic terms, to see
supply chain as systems rather than individual functions, as one of the key
problems I find in supply chains is the localized optimization of parts at
the expense of the overall system’s performance. Furthermore, I have a general
interest in the latest developments of supply chain management, responsive
manufacturing and lean thinking. Of particular interest to me is the growing
application of lean thinking in the health sector, which bears a huge
potential for value chain optimisation – while
being a growing demographic concern at the same time. For the most part, I am working with Frits Pil (in the center here, at the
last IMVP meeting), John Paul MacDuffie (on the left), and the IMVP and 3DayCar
researchers in the
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MIT’s Center for Technology, Policy, and Industrial
Development |
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The Judge Institute of Management,
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The greatest city at a glance…
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Selected Research Papers 1.
Pil, F.K. and Holweg, M. (2003), ‘Exploring Scale –
The Advantages of Thinking Small’, MIT
Sloan Management Review, Winter issue, Vol. 44, No. 2, p.33-39. 2.
Holweg, M. and Miemczyk, J., (2002), ’Logistics in
the Three-day Car Age: Assessing the Responsiveness of Vehicle Distribution
Logistics in the 3.
Holweg, M. and Bicheno, J. (2002), ‘Supply Chain
Simulation – A Tool for Education, Enhancement and Endeavour’,
International
Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 78, p. 163-175. 4.
Holweg, M. and Pil, F. (2001), ‘Successful
Build-to-Order Strategies start with the Customer’, MIT
Sloan Management Review, Fall issue, Vol.
43, No. 1, p. 74-83. 5.
Holweg, M., and Jones, D.T., (2001), ‘The
Build-to-Order Challenge’, Automotive World, January –
February, p. 40-45. Reprinted in
extended form in Taylor, D. H. and Brunt, D. C. (eds.), ‘Manufacturing
Operations and Supply Chain Management – The Lean Approach’, Thompson
International, London, p. 362-372. 6.
Bicheno, J., Holweg, M., and Niessmann,
J. (2001), ‘Constraint Batch Sizing in a Lean Environment’, International
Journal of Production Economics, Vol. 73, p. 41-49. |
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Current Projects & Working Papers 1.
‘Linking Product Variety to Order
Fulfillment Strategies’, with Frits Pil (Pittsburgh). 2.
‘Learning to Evolve - A Review of
Contemporary Lean Thinking’, presented at the International Symposium on
Logistics 2002 in 3.
‘The Role of IT in Product
Customization’, with Ali Yassine ( 4.
‘Overall Supply Chain
Effectiveness’, with Nick Rich ( 5.
‘Systems Thinking: A Review’, with Moh Naim and Denis Towill (Cardiff), to be presented at the International
Symposium on Logistics 2003, Sevilla,
Spain. 6.
‘Forrester revisited: A
Differentiated View on Supply Chain Optimization’, with Markus Jochum (MIT). And when I am not at work… …I very much enjoy skiing and
traveling, and recent trips have taken us to Scotland, Las Vegas, back home to
Hamburg as often as possible, and to South Africa. In particular we enjoyed
game watching in the Kruger National Park and diving in Sodwana Bay. So far I was quite content with
the fact that we are not meant to live among the fish, and mainly enjoyed
looking at them on a plate in front of me, but the sheer variety of life on
the reef was breath-taking. The blue-spotted ribbon tail rays and moray eels
were my clear favourites – almost as impressive as
the blue whales you get to see from time to time on Stellwagen
Bank, just off Nevertheless, any other free minute during the season I
try to spend on the water – either cruising on the Charles in one of MIT’s
Rhodes 19’s, or sailing around the islands
with the folks at the Boston
Harbor Sailing Club. Once the ice clears Also, I take great joy in racing the International One Designs (IOD) out of
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