technology and process and process management in aus

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Technology and processmanagement in the Australian

wine industryStuart Christopher Orr

Monash University, Caulfield East, Australia

Introduction

Can manufacturing strategy be applied to industries which are not traditionallyconsidered to be involved in manufacturing processes? This paperdemonstrates the applicability of manufacturing strategy to the Australianwine industry, via a case study and questionnaire survey analysis of the actualprocess of developing a strategy for the industry. The methodology followsPlatts method for manufacturing strategy research in the manufacturingindustry[1].

The following features of the wine industry made it an appropriate subject ofstudy[2]. The positive points were:

essentially homogeneous;

good sample size (about 700 organizations);

scope can include whole industry; clearly defined boundaries (product and operations);

a 200-year history;

displaying strong growth;

virgin manufacturing strategy research territory.

The negative points were:

very proud;

highly traditional;

nave about international business;

limited corporate orientation; medium industry moderation;

unsure as to industry identity (agriculture, food or manufacturing).

The elements of manufacturing strategy being investigated in this case studyare key decision areas and competitive priorities, as first proposed bySkinner[3]. Skinner argues that manufacturing strategy is the missing link

Benchmarking for QualityManagement & Technology,Vol. 4 No. 1, 1997, pp . 18-33. MCB University Press, 1351-3036 A copy of the questionnaire used for the project is available from the author.


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between production an d bus iness stra tegy because t he capabilities ofmanufacturing often are not considered in the formulation or implementation ofbusiness strategy. Competitive priorities are operational characteristics whichthe organization wishes to achieve to compete in the market (cost, service,quality, etc.). Decision areas are choices made in the wine manufactur ingprocess as to the nature of these operat ions (technology, job design, workpractices, quality control, etc.) which create the competitive priorities and leadto a competitive advantage. This concept has been developed[4-7] into acorrelation between key decision areas and competitive priorities for industrycompetence, which is used as the theoretical principle for this paper.

Figure 1 shows the scope of the research in the context of the manufacturing

process of a wine producer. As can be seen, the exter nal environment isessentially outside the control of the organization, but determines the actions itmust take to compete. What is within the control of the organization is thechoices it makes about how it will run its operations and which areas it willfocus on in achieving excellence. The project concentrates on those activitieswhich are under the control of the organization, which extend from itscompetitive priorities and key decision areas to wine production competence.The wine production competence of the organization is the basis of its capacityto perform in the market.

Industry overviewOn a macro scale, the Australian wine industry has been relatively stable for thepast decade. It has replaced flagging local sales with export sales, making it an

Figure 1 .

Scope of project in thecontext of a

manufacturingorganization


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industry which has justification for displaying an interest in world classmanufacturing[9].

On a micro scale, there is some movement in the industry (such asacquisitions) which makes it an interesting and worthwhile topic forresearch[10]. It is an industry with a broad variation in organizational groups,from the numerous small boutique wineries appear ing in South Australia,Victoria, New South Wales and Western Aust ralia, to companies which arelarge by Australian, as well as world, wine producing standards[9]. Some of thelarger producers have commercial interests in, joint agreements with, orownership of, overseas wine manufacturers [11]. This differentiat es theAustralian wine industry from industries such as the Australian automotiveindustry which is in a state of decline and in which there is a relatively smallnumber of dedicated major organizations available for research datacollection[12].

The wine industry in Australia has been identified by business observers asone of the biggest growth areas in the economy; Australia has now replacedGermany as the fourth largest source of wines imported in the USA[13]. Overthe 1990-91 financial year, the Australian wine industry contributed $1.05billion to Australias GDP and $177 million to Australias export earnings (4 percent of elaborately transformed manufactures exports)[14]. Over the last threefinancial years, wine exports (in dollar values) have increased. Exports havestayed static at about 18 per cent of imports (for the year ended 1993). In termsof national wine making R&D, Australia spends $1.68 million on public

technical research (or 0.16 per cent of annual production) per year[15]. Majorexport destinations are: the UK (27 per cent), Sweden (21 per cent), the USA andNew Zealand (11 per cent each), Canada (8 per cent) and Japan (5 per cent)[16].

A major wine producer, BRL Hardy Pty Ltd, identifies economies of scalesavings in marketing, production, distribution and corporate overhead costs asbeing a potential benefit to wine producers[9]. Distribution networks and prod-uct range were also identified as being important dimensions of competitiveness.According to BRL (based on findings published at the National AgriculturalResources Outlook Conference, 1990), Australia enjoys a cost productionadvantage over the USA and France in the wine variety Cabernet Sauvignon.Figure 2 shows the relevant cost components of the production process for thiswine for Australia, USA and France.

Methodology

As stated in the introduction, the methodology for this research follows that ofPlatts[1]:

creating the strategy formulation process;

testing and refining the process by application in a small number ofcompanies;

investigating the applicability of the process by survey.


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In this project Plat ts stage two (which drew on a small sample to test and refinethe process) was replaced by an industry workshop (preceded by a pilot groupsurvey) which provided a larger and richer information source. This is notconsidered to weaken the rigour of the project, but reflects the limited literatureavailable on s trategy and manufacturing management practices within thewine industry. Stage one was augmented by a personal interview process withindustry representatives.

In essence, the project comprised the elements shown in Table I.

Figure 2 .International cost

benchmarking: CabernetSauvignon

Activity Purpose

1 Detailed company interviews using an Identify the main processes which the industryinterview guide developed from past deals with and create a star ting list ofdetailed industry interviews, e.g. [17]. competitive priorities and key decision

areas for this industry.

2 Detailed literature review to match the Produce a complete list of potentialidentified processes, competitive priority competitive priorities and key decisionand key decision areas with other potential areas.competitive priorit ies and key decisionareas identified by other researchers.

3 A one-day industry workshop involving To further test the concept of the relationship

representatives from wine producers of all between key decision areas and competitivesizes, industry researchers, industry priorities for the wine industry and to trialauthority representatives and consultants. the list of both.

4 Design of a questionnaire to be used in To determine the correlation between the keyan industry-wide census. decision areas and competitive priorities and

impact of the key decision areas onmanufacturing competence in this industry.

5 DELPHI testing of the questionnaire. To maximize the quality of the responses.

6 Distribution and analysis of the questionnaire.

Table I.Summary of the

elements which theproject comprised


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Findings

An initial understanding of the industry was a chieved through personal

interviews and the preparation of case studies on nine major wineries. The

personal interviews were based on an interview guide prepared from previous

operations management research projects, conducted by a range of researchers

including Sohal, et al.[18]. In essence it covered the following five issues:

(1) Individual company directions.

(2) Wine manufacturing.

(3) Production planning and control.

(4) Purchasing and materials management.

(5) Future opportunities for the Australian wine industry.

The interviewees were mainly CEOs or production managers. The nine largest

wine producers (in terms of sales and number of employees) were interviewed

and the results written up into case studies. A customized follow-up question-

naire was then sent to each organization, addressing areas where information

was omitted in the initial interview, or which the interviewee could not answer

at that time. The information received from these follow-up questionnaires was

then incorporated into the case studies. The key decision areas and competitive

priorities were identified directly from the responses of the interviewees in the

finalized case studies in relation to problems, advantages and the basis for

competition in the Australian wine industry[19].

The competitive priorities and the frequency with which they were identified

by the interviewees are shown in Figure 3. As can be seen, product cost, product

Figure 3 .Frequency ofidentification ofcompetitive priorities byinterviewees


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quality, production output variation and delivery/supply flexibility were themost significant competitive priorities identified.

The following were the key decision areas identified by the interviewees:

technology investment;

inventory management;

JIT;

MRP II;

plant layout;

process control;

production plan manipulation/control;

statistical process control;

raw material (grape) quality control;

dist ribution;

subcontracting production;

customer focus;

scales of economy;

allocation of production to centres of strength;

inclusion of market research in production plan;

quality certification (ISO 9000).

The key decision areas of technology investment, production planmanipulation/control, ISO 9002 quality certification, inventory managementand sta tist ical process control were considered to relate directly to the fourmajor competitive priorities mentioned above by more than 50 per cent of theinterviewees.

The literature reviewed provided a further list of potential competitivepriorities for the wine indust ry, identified through d irect measurement orreviews of other research. These competitive priorities were then evaluatedagainst the scope of the project (shown in Figure 1) and the qualitative data inthe case s tudies. Speed of production, market scope, rat e of innovation and

product price were added subsequently to the competitive priorities shown inFigure 3. The literature reviewed also provided a range of key decision areas formanufacturing strategy. These key decision areas were similarly evaluated andthe following were added to the list given above:

process flexibility;

integration;

time (control);

capacity;


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quality control;

labour and staffing;

integration with business strategy and environment;

role of workforce;

product design;

organizational design;

facility management;

work organization;

material flow;

worker involvement;

supplier reliability;

top management involvement;

corporate culture;

communication;

structural decentralization;

organization design.

In the course of this project, the term product quality in relation to wine and

wine production has become prominent. It is therefore appropriate to define ithere. Different organizations and researchers use different definitions of quality,the s implest of which is fitness of purpose[20]. Other definitions includeconformance to requirements[21] and the totality of features andcharacteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to sat isfy stated orimplied needs[22]. In many cases product and service quality also incorporatesthe concept of value for money. Quality clearly has meaning only when it isrelated to the function of the product[23]. In the wine industry this meaning isrepresented by the characteristics of the wine as a (premium) beverage.

Garvin[24] defines product quality as performance, features, reliability,conformance, durability (shelf life), serviceability, aesthetics and perceivedquality. In addition Samson and Sohal[23] believe that quality arising from a

production process should include what does the customer want and what canwe deliver? Thus it would appear that the term product quality in the contextof wine production is a mixture of delivery, value for money and customerperception factors. This definition of quality is a moving target for the wineproduction process. It is up to the wine producer to monitor customer leadchanges and adjust the process to accommodate these changes. This need forconstant appraisal and adjustment makes the total quality management termcontinuous improvement very important for industr ies such as the wineindustry.


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To evaluate the key decision areas and competitive priorities identified in theliterature and personal interviews, a one-day workshop was held at theAustralian Wine Research Institute. Attendance at t he workshop was byinvitation. To ensure all perspectives were addressed, winery seniormanagement, managers, industry consultants and industry researchers wereinvited. This process also placed the findings drawn from the case studies incontext.

The methodology used for the workshop was to:

introduce the necessary theoretical concepts to the participants;

present previous findings and relevant literature;

form teams of four to five people to discuss the validity and relativeimportance of the competitive priorities and key decision areas.

The concepts introduced to the participants were:

the meaning and role of wine production strategy and competence;

the meaning and role of key decision areas and competitive priorities.

In total, 20 participants attended the workshop (this represented a 50 per centattendance rate of the 40 participants invited). The participants were formedinto three groups containing a mixture of consultants, industry researchers andwinery managers. This ensured a broad spread of perspectives in each group aswell as the basis for competitive discussion. Competitive discussion is useful fordetailed examination of difficult-to-define issues. The groups were given 30

minutes to discuss and prioritize a list of competitive priorities and 30 minutesto discuss and prioritize a list of key decision areas. Each of these was suppliedas a pro forma list to the participants. Each group then presented their findingsto the rest of the part icipan ts. All of these presenta tions were recorded,transcribed and the principal observations extracted. As a result the followingcompetitive priorities were identified as being significant for the Australianwine industry:

product cost ;

product quality;

product pr ice;

product range;

supply dependability;

supply flexibility;

speed of production;

role of workforce;

rate of innovation;

market scope;

brand name.


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With the exception of brand name and product range, these priorities were thesame as the suggested competitive priorities drawn from the literature and casestudies.

The syndicate groups were asked to give a rat ing of 1-5 for each of thesuggested competitive priorities. There was only limited agreement as to therelative importance of each of the priorities between the groups. Most groupsconcluded that all the above priorities were important and so rating them was asubjective process. A larger sample would have been required for an accurateevaluation. The groups work sheets (each group submitted a work sheet at theend of the workshop) indicated that product cost, product quality and productprice were generally considered to be of high priority. Speed of production and

role of workforce were considered generally to be of lower priority.Each group was asked to make a brief presentation outlining the basis by

which they r ated each of the competitive priorities in order of their relativeimportance. Group One felt that, in determining the relative importance ofcompetitive priorities, the individual organization should decide within whichposition of the wine market they wished to operate. For example, a wineproducer could sell products into the fine wine segment of the market oralternat ively into the beverage section of the market. This market positioningwill then determine which of the agreed set of competitive priorities are moreimportant and which are less important for that particular organization. It wasalso noted that some organizations which have adopted an approach of havinga very large product range may endeavour to operate in several positions in the

market and for them all competitive priorities may be of equal importance.For t his group t he most important competitive priority was for t heorganization to establish its mission and be aware of its principal objectives.This, of course, is a vital business process for any organization although, interms of the scope of this project, this activity is part of the strategies of theorganization as a whole and not just the wine manufacturing process.Determining the mission of the organization is an organization or businessstrategy issue, rather than one pertaining solely to manufacturing competitivepriorities and competences.

Th is group also identified the fact that it was difficult to sepa rate thecompetitive priorities of product cost, quality and price as they are very muchinterrelated. Despite this, there was agreement within this g roup that productquality was universal in that the purchaser of a four litre wine cask has thesame expectation of quality as one who buys an expensive bottle of wine. Forthis reason, this group identified product quality as the second priority.

The groups third priority was product cost. They felt that product price isinfluenced by factors outside the organ izations control and that a wineproducer prices products in response to these external influences. The groupdid, however, note that the organization does have the option of determining theproduct price for a given unit production cost.

The four th priority identified was the role of the workforce. The skillsposs essed by the companys employees (including technology, operations


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management, logistics, sales and marketing) were considered to be maincontribut ions of the workforce to the competitive priorities of the wineproduction process. The fifth most important priority according to this groupwas flexibility in supply. The group believed that speed of production, supplyflexibility and supply dependability all really combine to create this competitivepriority. The final competitive priority discussed by the group was rate ofinnovation. Innovation in this context was considered to apply to both wine-making processes (including the introduction of new processes), new productsand new business approaches.

Group Two gave each of the competitive priorities a rating of 1 to 5, 1 beingmost important as they did not believe that it was possible to rank all the

priorities in order of relative importance. They believed that all competitivepriorities come out of and represent an integrated system and therefore can beimplemented only as a system. They also noted, however, that, in analysing asystem, one must first define the elements. In this context product quality wasdefined as the most important competitive priority. They identified product costand product pr ice as combining to represent the second most import antcompetitive priority. They also noted that the systems environment into whichthese competitive priorities fit means that possessing any one of these prioritieswithout the other made any of them of little value. For example, low productprices without quality have no real value in this industry.

The group then rated supply dependability as a third level of importance asa competitive priority and identified supply flexibility as being associated very

closely (in t erms of its beneficial impact on the organization) with s upplydependability. The group felt that these two competitive priorities togetherreally represented t he third level of importance as a competitive priority.Production capacity was identified as the fourth level of importance as acompetitive priority. The g roup noted that many companies were driven bymarketing and sales and neglected the production environment. They felt thatsuch organizations believed that there was always capacity to produce the orderand did not attempt to match the orders with the capacity that the organizationcould manage efficiently.

Market scope was also rated at the third importance level. Awareness of themarket in which the organization operates is vital to matching the organizationsoperations to the market. The role of the workforce within the organization wasgiven a fourth level importance rating. Multi-skilling and flexibility in theworkforce was identified as being par ticularly important for todays winemanufacturing environment. Innovation in product ranges and processes as wellas the products themselves were rated at the fifth importance level competitivepriorities.

Group T hree believed that all of the competitive priorities suggested fordiscussion were of equal importance for any wine producing organization.They believed there was strong synergy within the identified list of competitivepriorities. They also quoted Japanese businesses and Apple Computers asorganizations which focus simultaneously on all competitive priorities. This


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group suggested that , despite the interrelatedness of the suggested competitivepriorities, it was important to attempt to separate them and identify theirindividual significance (as did the previous group). This group believed thatbrand name also represented a competitive priority for the organization whichwas tied in with quality and consistency. They gave this a number one levelimportance. As a brand name can be transferred between organizations, ormanufacturing sites, it has been concluded that this competitive priority doesnot apply to the manufacturing process and so does not fall within the scope ofthe project.

Product cost was identified as the second most important competitivepriority by th is group. The group then concluded that it was unable to

determine the relative importance of the rest of the competitive priorities. Theydid, however, suggest that supply flexibility, speed of production and the role ofthe workforce were the least important of the suggested competitive priorities.They also noted that this did not make these competitive prioritiesunimportant, but they would be lower on the importance scale. It is interestingto note that the opinion of this group does not relate highly with the opinion ofthe second group, but does correlate moderately with the opinion of the firstgroup.

The proposed key decision areas were then presented to the workshopparticipants and the following finalized list of key decision areas was identifiedas being significant for the Australian wine industry:

process flexibility;

process integration;

time control;

capacity;

inventory levels;

material flow;

organization design;

integration of production with business strategy and environment;

product design;

plant and equipment;

production planning control;

work organization;

labour and staffing;

role of workforce;

worker involvement;

level of integration of technology;

facility management;


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supplier reliability;

quality control/assurance;

corporate culture;

communication;

structural decentralization;

top management involvement.

The syndicate groups were asked to give a rat ing of 1-5 for each of the keydecision areas selected. There was only limited agreement as to the relativeimportance of the decision areas between the syndicate groups. Most groups

once again concluded that all the above decision areas were important and sorating them was a subjective process. It was determined that all of the abovekey decision areas were generally of high importance except organizationaldesign and str uctural decentralization which were considered to have lowerimportance than the other key decision areas.

A questionnaire was then designed and mailed out to all registeredAustralian wineries. There were 740 registered wineries at the time[8], of which125 responded, giving a response r ate of 17 per cent. T he questionnairecontained two questions of relevance to this paper. The first asked therespondents to rate the importance of the competitive priorities on a Likertscale, between 1 and 5. The second question asked the respondents to considereach competitive priority and then select from the list of key decision areas

given above a key decision area as having the Most effect, Next most effectand Third most effect. Each of the effect categories were listed in columns,alongside the competitive priorities, creating a cross-correlation table. Therewas also scope for the respondents to introduce other competitive priorities andkey decision areas. Although the other category was used, no sufficientlyfrequent responses were apparent from the frequency analysis.

The results were computed by tabulating the frequency counts of each of the23 key decision areas with respect to three levels of effect, for each of the tencompetit ive priorities. Each level of key decision area effect (Most effect, Nextmost effect and Third most effect) was given a weighting of 3, 2 and 1respectively. The (frequency*weighting) was then calculated for each keydecision area-competitive priority pair (there are 230 of these pairs). To this wasadded a significance constr aint to improve the validity of the results. T he(frequency*weighting) was set to a value of 0 if less than 10 per cent of therespondents indicated that the key decision area had an effect on thecompetitive priority (i.e. the sum of the frequency of responses 10 per cent ofrespondents. The (frequency*weighting) was then multiplied by the relevantimportance level of each of the competitive priorities (determined from theLikert scale question) to determine the contribution to the organization fromeach key decision area from each competitive priority. The results were thensummed for each key decision area to find the total contribution to theorganization from that key decision area and the findings were normalized to


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sum to 100. The results are shown in Table II and the main ten are depictedgraphically in Figure 4.

As can be seen, the key decision areas of plant capacity, quality assurance,plant and equipment, production planning and control, product design and topmanagement involvement all have a high and roughly equivalent potential levelof importance to Australian wine producers. This means that these key decisionareas have a high level of impact on the competitive priorities which areconsidered important by wine producers. These results indicate that the correctmanagement of these key decision area s will result in a higher level ofmanufacturing competence and a more competitive production output from thewine making process.

Anecdotal evidence from the interview and workshop transcripts supportsthese findings. Investment in plant and equipment is a significant issue for allwine producers, absorbing up to 10 per cent of sales per year. The high cost ofcapital equipment for this industry, together with its low profit margins (2 percent for some producers) means that the more effectively capacity is managed,the greater the wine producers profitability. Some of the producers interviewed

Key decision area Importance

Plant and equipment 11.8

Quality control/assurance 11.2

Capacity 11.1

Production planning and control 9.9

Product design 8.4

Top management involvement 8.2

Inventory levels 6.4

Labour and staffing 4.8

Integration with business strategy 4.0

Material flow 3.9

Communication 3.4

Worker involvement 2.7

Work organization 2.3

Supplier reliability 2.3

Process flexibility 2.2Level of integration of technology 1.8

Corporate culture 0.9

Role of workforce 0.8

Time control 0.6

Process integration 0.0

Organizational design 0.0

Facility management 0.0

Other 3.3

Table II.Importance scores forkey decision areas(normalized between0 and 100)


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operated their capacities at 100 per cent while others claimed to be much lower(down to 50 per cent).

While the industry does have its own internal quality assurance standards(wine show awards, and toxicity and pesticide residue levels), many of thelarger wine producers have gained or are seeking to gain ISO 9002 qualitycertification to support export sales.

Production planning and control is managed at very different levelsthroughout the industry. At one end of the spectrum, it is based on the ChiefWine Makers preferences, and at the other end, on a version of MRP IIdeveloped specifically for the industry. The interview and workshop findingsindicate, however, that all major producers are now rapidly increasing theirlevel of usage of computers in production planning[2]. In an industry whereprices are low (Australian wine prices are quite low compared to the winequality, by world st andards ) buying behaviour is influenced s trongly byproduct characteristics and design. Thus, product design is also an importantmanufacturing characteristic for this indust ry. As the industry is experiencingsome consolidation at this time, the acquisitions of smaller producers havemeant that some organizations now have up to 30 production sites. With thistype of operating environment, senior management involvement at theproduction level naturally is perceived to be low and communication and co-ordination a significant issue for the larger organizations.

It is also interest ing to note that while inventory level still is considered to bea significant key decision area, it has a lower level of importance than the othermajor key decision areas. This may be because of the fact that the industryperceives inventory holdings as a necessary part of the wine manufacturingprocess and not subject to control and reduction. The interviews did, however,identify the use of JIT in the bottling and packaging areas, which appeared tolend themselves to inventory level reduction. Some key decision areas scored

Figure 4 .

Importance of the tenmajor key decision

areas resulting from theindustry census


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very low importance scores which suggests that they did not have a significantpositive impact on any of the competitive priorities which were important towine producers. These key decision areas should be given a low priority as thereturns from investing resources in these areas are likely to be low.

When compared to the findings of research projects for more traditionallyidentified manufacturing industries[19], such as the automotive industry, themajor key decision areas identified in this project are quite similar. This wouldsuggest that the basis for operational competence for any production-basedprocess, whether it be manufactured traditionally or not, is driven by the worldclass manufacturing parameters of technology management, qualityassurance, capacity and inventory management, production planning and

control, and product design. This has interesting implications for many otherindustries.

Figure 5 summarizes the findings of this project by displaying therelationship between the g roupings of the key decision areas and all thecompetitive priorities identified in this project.

ConclusionThe basic tenets of manufacturing strategy (i.e. that key decision areascorrelate with a set of competitive priorities and subsequently can result inmanufacturing competence) can be successfully applied to an industry such asthe Australian wine industry, which is not traditionally considered to be amanufacturing industry. The results of this study would suggest that, for anindustry with a production-type process, the basic demands of internat ionalcompetition result in a fundamental set of key decision areas and competitivepriorities.

References

1. Platts, K.W., A process approach to researching manufacturing st rategy, InternationalJournal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 13 No. 8, 1993, p. 7.

Figure 5 .Relationship betweenidentified decision areasand competitivepriorities categories


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2. Orr, S.C.,Production Strategies in the Australian Wine Industry Report 2, Proceedings ofa Workshop on Wine Industr y Production Strategy, Quality Management Research UnitPublications, Melbourne, 1994.

3. Skinner, W., Manufacturing: missing link in corporate str ategy, Harvard BusinessReview, May 1969, pp 136-45.

4. Banks, R.L. and Wheelwright, S.C., Operat ions versus s trategy: trading tomorrow fortoday, Harvard Business Review, May-June 1979, pp.112-20.

5. Buffa, E.S., Meeting the Competitive Challenge, Dow Jones-Irwin, Homewood, IL, 1984.

6. Hayes, R.H. and Abernat hy, W.J., Managing our way to economic decline, HarvardBusiness Review, July-August 1990, pp. 67-77.

7. Hayes, R.H. and Wheelwright, S.C., Restoring Our Competi tive Edge: Competing throughManufacturing, John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY, 1984.

8. Orr, S. C., A case study on operations management and performance improvement in theAustralian wine industry, paper presented at the Second International EurOMAConference, Enschede, The Netherlands, 1995.

9. BRL Hardy Limited,Prospectus, BRL Hardy Limited, Adelaide, July 1992.

10. Petaluma Limited, Investment Prospectus, Petaluma Limited, Piccadilly, South Australia,1992.

11. Brown, B., Tough t imes for small wineries,Business Australian, 5 August 1993, p. 1.

12. Iddles, N., Globalisation of the automotive indus try st aying in the game, SAE-AJournal, September-October 1991, p. 19.

13. Lander, R., Bikkies and wine taste good,Bulletin, 6 July 1992, p. 73.

14. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Sales of Australian Wine and Brandy by Winemakers,Canberra, December 1993, ABS Cat. No. 8504.0.

15. Grape and Wine Research Council, Annual Report1990-1991, Adelaide, 1991.

16. Port, J., Meeting overseas wine demands,The Age, 23 March 1993, p. 25.17. Minor, E.D., Hensley, R. L. and Wood, R. D., A review of empirical manufacturing strategy

studies, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 14 No. 1,1994, p. 18.

18. Sohal, A., Samson, D. and Weill, P., Manufacturing and technology strategy: a survey ofplanning for AMT, Computer Integrated Manufacturing Systems, Vol. 4 No. 2, May 1991,pp. 71-9.

19. Orr, S.C., Case Studies on Management Practices in the Australian Wine Industry, QualityManagement Research Unit Publications, Melbourne, 1994.

20. Juran, J.M., Quality Control Handbook, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, 1979.

21. Crosby, P.B.,Quality Is Free, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, 1979.

22. ISO 8402, Quality Vocabulary, International Standards Office, Geneva, 1986.

23. Samson, D. A. and Sohal, A., The strategic status of quality: an Australian perspective,International Journal of Technology Management, Vol. 5 No 3, 1990.

24. Garvin, D.A., Competing of the eight dimensions of quality, Harvard Business Review,Vol. 65 No. 6, 1987, pp. 101-9.

technology and process and process management in aus

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