In recent years, researchers and practitioners are paying increasing attention to the phenomenon of manufacturing strategy. However, there exists no formal theory of manufacturing strategy to explain the phenomenon. There is a real need for empirical studies for the development of such a theory....

The dual goals of this study are: (1) to develop an empirically valid neural model of U.S. factories in a range of industries producing discrete products, and (2) to use the model to test the effect of changes in product line width on plant performance variables. Accordingly, a neural factory...