Abstract
This paper is focused on the globalization in the steel industry. The main contents are structured three part largely. First is about the theoretical study of Globalization. Second is about the study of the steel industry environment, situation, and trends. The last one is about the case study of five steel companies, the evaluation of International Manufacturing Configuration (IMC) of five steel companies, and the study of steel technology adoption guidance for the Globalization.
For those studies, investigation about many kinds of materials and inquiries to experts are used.
Let me explain more detail contents in each part. First part includes the concept of globalization and international operation management, the motivation of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), the theory of entry mode into the foreign market, the theory of Global Operation Management (GOM), and the evaluation model of IMC & competitive priority. The study of this part was used for structuring of the study Model. In Second part, there are trends of demands and supplies of steel products & raw material, trends of the development of steel technology, and structure innovation & globalization in the steel industry. The last part is focused on the case study of five companies about identification of manufacturing operation dispersion and evaluation of IMC level, and there is conclusion for the optimization of global operation management.
This paper proposes nine kinds of key success factors for the successful global operation management in the steel industry. Contents are as follows. 1) Diversifying, balancing, and interacting the manufacturing site, establishing 2) Establishing and strengthening position at the local market such as manufacturing site in the economic bloc area, 3) acquiring fast steel technology through strategic alliance and developing by corporation with other company, 4) utilizing the demand similarities over the world such as extension of steel distribution channel, 5) foreign market entry together with big customer, 6) the response to changes of raw material kind used, 7) dispersing the environmental pollution facilities such as outsourcing the upstream process at the raw material sites, 8) investing in small size & standard stage technology for commercialization and at the area the level of personnel technology is high, 9) considering the changing speed of new technology and evaluating consistently the investment timing & environment for the technology to be mainstream.
This paper suggests at the final conclusion that important factors in the global operation management be systematic approaching the trends of demand & supply and technology, and improvement of international manufacturing network configuration (IMC), especially flexibility of manufacturing and communication through the organization.
