The present study aims at answering the following question: how to select production techniques that would be better aligned to the context and reality that contribute to enhance the performance of the competitive dimensions?

Based on what and how each technique proposes to improve certain competitive dimension, an artifact was created that leads the user of this method to question what the main gap is to be worked on, which is target of certain production technique. Therefore, the present study contributes to industrial managers providing a method that will signal which technique to adopt facing the main problem(s) in the different competitive dimensions in their production realities.

The method is not something definitive. It cannot be considered complete and free from restrictions. We should emphasize that the proposal of the present study is to facilitate, recommend and support the user on the selection of techniques, who later will have to delve into the chosen techniques for subsequent adoption. In addition, the method that is simplified from the technique's vision into the organization, also presents limitations, but, it is a proposal with this bias: one option that supports the selection of production techniques, aligned with the individual necessities of the organization. Therefore, that is a method to support decision-making.

The manufacture plays a relevant role on the company's competitiveness. According to Slack (1994), the manufacture should make sense in the operation to suit the strategic context, ensuring that its contribution to the competitiveness is clear and permanent. That means, the production must be aligned with how the business competes in the market. Still, according to the same author, the elaboration of the manufacturing strategy consists on the idealization of policies, plans and projects that define the direction of the manufacture until it becomes the source of competitive advantage. It clears the bonds between the global competitive strategy and the development of the company's manufacture resources. It brings the concept and the sense of "competitiveness" into the factory.

According to Ghinato (2000), the summary definition of Production Strategy (and its deployment) undergo the following steps:

Definition of the corporate strategy: the company's relationship with the environment in which it operates, its business, products and services;

The process brings direction and purpose, ensuring that the policies and individual decisions, throughout the organization all point in the same direction (Slack, 1994). This same author brings the idea that the manufacture goal would be answering the following question: what do we need of our manufacturing function that would make us capable of competing more effectively?

Corrêa and Corrêa (2011) claim that the operations strategy goal is to guaranty that the production processes and value delivery to the customers are aligned with the company's strategic concerning the financial results expected and the market intended to be served and adapted to the environment in which it is inserted. The operations strategy is concerned with the long-term development of processes and resources and with the creation of competences so the organization can have sustainable levels of competitive advantages.

According to Lean Way Consulting (2015), Manufacturing Strategy is a global pattern of decisions and actions that define the role, the goals and the production activities in a way that they support and contribute to the company's business strategy. The Manufacturing strategy affects and determines the individuals' behavior, the competitiveness and the success of an organization. It also addresses broad issues on how the resources should be configured, in order to reach the desired corporate goals.

This Focused Factory concept, proposed by Skinner (1974), evolved, according to Antunes Júnior et al. (2013), to the wide economic notion of Strategic Business Units (SBU's), that can be understood as different families of products that have direct relationship with the market.

Bond (2004) emphasizes that the main goal of a company managed by strategic business units (SBU's) is to offer products that best meet market needs. Focus allows a narrowing relationship between the SBU's with the market and, simultaneously, its specialization in skills to meet those needs.

According to Wheelwright (1984), in big and diverse companies, it is necessary to specify the strategy to the several sectors and groups. This author emphasizes the division of the company in SBU's, because each business unit concentrates efforts in a base in which, if it is suitable, improves the unit's competitive position to the customers' sub-segments being fulfilled , complementing the desired competitive advantage. The greater the level of business diversification, the harder the conception of strategies becomes, due to the particularities of each "business inside business".

The competitiveness of a company is conditioned on its performance in dimensions such as cost, quality, flexibility, delivery and lead-time. As a company is not expected to deliver an excellent performance in all of these dimensions, Platts and Gregory (1991) observe the prioritization of these criteria that will determine how the manufacture will contribute to the business performance. By identifying the competitive dimensions that the manufacturing function can best contribute to the achievement of business objectives, a strategic role is then given to manufacturing. According to the aforementioned authors, a manufacturing strategy defines how the manufacture will contribute to achieving the business goals. There is a deployment of strategic decisions in the manufacturing areas in a way to align the company's manufacturing resources (or business) with its competitive strategy, increasing the capacity to compete, in criteria already mentioned such as cost, quality, flexibility, delivery and lead-time. It is the prioritization of these criteria and the combination between manufacture and market strategy that will determine how the company will compete (PLATTS and GREGORY, 1991).

The production strategy aims at concentrating the production efforts to sustain the business competitive advantage. The Competitive Dimensions translate how a certain business competes in the market, that is, what are the competitive priorities of a particular business. To answer such competitive dimensions, the production makes decisions that can be grouped in categories, termed as categories of decision.

The design research method, figure 2, consists of two basic activities: build and evaluate. The construction is a creative process that has new artifacts as a result; the evaluation, in sequence, tests the utility of these artifacts, having as a result validated artifacts that can be models, methods or constructs (DRESCH et al. 2015).

Figure 2 Source: Adapted from Dresch et al. (2015).

Table 2 correlates the application of the Design Research to the research of this author, also detailing when the experts panel was used. The generic steps of the DR method are detailed to the specific research.

Table 2

Generic steps to DR	Detailed steps to DR
Problem identification	Difficulty in defining which production techniques (among the numerous existing) to adopt to the specific reality.
Awareness of the problem	Through the deep study of the theme, it was confirmed the perception of the author. Requirement: the artifact must be another option that recommends production techniques, supporting the industrial manager in his decision making.
Biographical review	Theoretical study of Production Strategy and its deployment, in addition to the techniques defined to belong to the method.
Artifact and classes of problems identification	There are existing artifacts (Pantaleão, 2003). The proposed artifact has its own characteristics: from the techniques' proposal to the reality.
Proposition of the artifact	After the biographical review and the experts' panel, who criticized the initial method and contributed to the construction of the method, the author proposes his method (artifact).
Artifact Project and Development	The author detailed the procedures of the construction of the method (artifact) with the DR being useful to create knowledge.
Artifact evaluation	The method (artifact) is evaluated under a set of criteria generated by DR, according to Hevner et al. (2004).
Explicitness of learning and conclusions	It is present in the conclusion and limitations' section.
Research communication	Step to be fulfilled after the defense of this thesis.

Source: Elaborated by the authors

Through the theoretical study regarding the production practices and techniques to leverage the different competitive dimensions, the present authors selected and studied deeply the techniques that are common between authors and scholars. When realizing that specific techniques repeat itself by at least two of the authors researched, it was defined that it would be a good criterion to study in greater depth these techniques, which would then take part in the method of production techniques selection. Due to the fact that the bibliographical research verified that national authors / scholars had already conducted research on a global scale, and due to the fact that the present study is not focused on researching the techniques themselves, but in the choice of the techniques according to the reality where they may be adopted, it made the present authors limit their research by national authors / scholars of production practices.

The focus of this study is to develop the six steps, described before, with the intention to create a method that prioritizes the adoption of certain production technique over another, among the known production techniques, which are adopted to better respond to the manufacturing characteristics and their correspondent priority competitive dimensions. For instance, suppose that there are three main production techniques being adopted to improve the competitive dimension cost. How to define which of these techniques should be adopted primarily? Figure 3 summarizes the focus that the present study wants to explore.

Figure 3 Source: Elaborated by the authors

The main author/scholars of production practices and techniques researched were: 1) Antunes Júnior, Klippel, Seidel and Klippel (2013); 2) Antunes Júnior and Produttare Consulting (2008, 2015); 3) Pacheco (2012), whose study researched authors as Inman, Sale and Green Jr. (2008), Pettersen (2009) and Mehrjerdi (2011); 4) Machado and Heineck (2001); Martins (2009); 5) Veiga, Lima and Costa (2008); 7) Ghinato and Lean Way Consulting (1996, 2000, 2015).

The initial practice list, which was composed of 25 techniques, was completed in a final list of 29 techniques (12 techniques were inserted in the method, by the specialists' suggestion; likewise, 8 techniques of the original list were removed). The final list of techniques was evaluated by 5 (five) specialists, who rated the impact of each technique in each competitive dimension.

The majority of the 25 production techniques and practices of the method's final list belong to a specific approach/theory/system: the Toyota Product System (TPS) Theory of Constraints (TOC), Six Sigma and Total Quality Management (TQM). Table 3 correlates the techniques with their respective approaches.

Table 3

Techniques		Approaches
		Lean	TOC	Seis Sigma	TQM
1	Job Management
2	Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)
3	Standardized Work	X
4	Levelized Production -Heijunka	X
5	Pull Production System - Kanban	X
6	Drum-buffer-rope scheduling - DBR		X
7	Fine Production Scheduling
8	Study and (Re)configuration of Layout
9	Single Minute Exchange of Die - SMED	X
10	Jidoka	X
11	Housekeeping - 5S	X
12	Poka-Yoke	X
13	Line Stop - Andon	X
14	Statistical Quality Control
15	DMAIC cycle			X
16	Quality Control Circle - QCC				X
17	KAIZEN	X
18	One-Piece Flow / Ikko Nagashi)	X
19	Takt Time	X
20	Periodic (hour-by-hour) Monitoring of Rhythm	X
21	Gemba Walk	X
22	Staggered Audit - Kamishibai	X
23	Visual Control Management	X
24	Help Chain	X
25	Handling Routines & Supply Materials - Mizusumashi	X
26	Method of Analysis and Problem Solving (MASP)				X
27	Real-Time Production Monitoring (OEE - Overall Equipment Effectiveness)	X
28	Multifunctional Operator	X
29	Shojinka (varying the numbers of operators in accordance with demand)	X

Source: Elaborated by the authors, based on Antunes Júnior, Klippel, Seidel and Klippel (2013); Antunes Júnior and Produttare Consulting (2008, 2015); Pacheco (2012), whose study researched authors as Inman, Sale and Green Jr. (2008), Pettersen (2009) and Mehrjerdi (2011); Machado and Heineck (2001); Martins (2009); Veiga, Lima and Costa (2008); Ghinato and Lean Way Consulting (1996, 2000, 2015).

It is important to emphasize that specific production techniques have an impact in more than one competitive dimension simultaneously, that means one practice contributes more decisively for one competitive dimensions, but it also has a positive influence on another dimension. This was taken into consideration in the creation of the method, if a certain production technique has a relevant impact in different competitive dimensions, the technique appears in the method in these different competitive dimensions where it contributes to leverage the improvement. The research with specialists defined, which techniques impact the most in which competitive dimensions.

A theoretical individual research was done of the 29 concepts, methods, processes, techniques, practices and/or tools to develop the method. For each one of these 29 techniques, a summary table was created, having the fields "Main goals" and the "How to" of each technique.

After the proper appropriation of these techniques and specially knowing what differs one from another, a proposed method was created, which is basically the main goal of this study. This method was presented to and valued by an expert panel that critically evaluated the first version of the method (M0), evaluating and suggesting modifications. A survey was conducted with the experts. Those experts were chosen by two criteria: a) Minimal Academic and/or professional experience of 10 years; b) Major experience in Lean Manufacturing, because it is the major part of techniques the method to be proposed (see table 14 - Attachment).

In addition to the critic, experts also filled out a table that would measure the impact of each production technique in the different competitive dimensions.

The modified method, according to the experts' critics (M1), was applied in an industrial reality for validation. The industrial manager of the respective company had an adequate level of knowledge of the production techniques presented, because, if not, he could not contribute, in an effective way, to the evaluation of the method created for the selection of techniques. The present study has a strong professional side, but the academic experts' critics attribute robustness to the method.

The user interface with the method is through the Excel panel. The first step, when using the method, is to define what is the priority sequence of the competitive dimensions of a certain Strategic Business Unit. The user of the method will question: what is the most important competitive dimension and where the performance is worse to the competitor? Again, the 5 point Likert scale was used so that the user could then assess the importance of each competitive dimension to a certain Strategic Business Unit.

After the definition of the importance rank of the Competitive Dimensions for a certain SBU, the method will lead the user to question themselves about the real demands towards each competitive dimension, following the sequence of the most important to the least important dimension. Each technique battles certain demands/problems. Therefore, when reading the general problem(s) and the specific ones to the competitive dimension mentioned, the user verifies how much they identify their reality in such problems, general and specific, attributing an index, according to table 11. The 9 point Likert scale was used as a reference, besides the zero index, which determines that a certain gap does not exist.

Table 10

5	Most Important Dimension
4
3
2
1	Less important Dimension

Source: Elaborated by the authors.

Table 11

9	Portraits perfectly an existing gap
8	Portraits very well an existing gap
7	Portraits well an existing gap
6
5
4
3
2	Portraits a relevant problem a little
1	Portraits a relevant problem very little
0	It is not a real gap

Source: Elaborated by the authors.

Generic problems can be the target of many production techniques. The specific problems, in turn, detail general problems better, which facilitates the technique direction, because normally the techniques improve or solve general or more specific problems.

To reach the general problems, which the user of the method will question, the field "main goals" is used, from the theoretical summary table of each studied technique. To reach the specific problems, the field "how to" of the same summary table of each technique is used. Table 12 shows this relation between the problems and the techniques' proposal.

Table 12

Theoretical study of the practice	Practice on the method
Main goals	General problems
How to	Specific problems

Source: Elaborated by the authors.

Once the user attributes an index to the problems that are the target of certain production techniques, according to the representativeness of these problems in their reality, the method will recommend to the user the techniques to be adopted. Exemplifying: for the situation where the user chose the index nine, the technique that targets general and specific problems is the first technique to be recommended by the method. Therefore, successively, following the index in descendent order, the other techniques will be recommended. For situations that the user chose index zero, this linked technique will not appear as recommended. The user must attribute a different index for each evaluation performed, thus establishing a ranking between the evaluated situations and the most representative of their reality should obtain higher indexes. The method allows only one index repetition for each competitive dimension evaluated.

After the method recommends the sequence of production techniques for the most important competitive dimension, the method will follow the next competitive dimension (less important), passing through all the dimensions, if the user wishes to do so. The user can decide how many competitive dimensions, according to their respective importance in order to obtain the production techniques recommended. The method can be used for only one dimension, for some, as well as for all of them.

The fact that the method was applied to only one reality does not allow us to consider this method as totally approved. It is clear for the authors that it is important to conduct applications in different industries. At the same time, it is important to mention that this application in a company was the first and a difficult experience to conduct inside a company with its own method and culture.

The method was applied in an industrial reality through the evaluation of a manufacturing manager, joined along with one of the authors. The company in which the method was applied is a beverage company that has continuous manufacturing processes and a knowledge level of production strategy and production techniques aligned with the method's proposal.

Some conclusions and evolutions that were reached in the method application, took place during the discussion about it, along with the industrial manager who used the method:

a. It is recommended to analyze more than one competitive dimension, as some techniques impact in more than one dimension, simultaneously. It is important to verify if the techniques recommended are not convergent in different dimensions. This more complete analysis, generating a final result of production techniques recommended, can show that certain techniques are repeatedly recommended in different dimensions. This, in a certain way, validates the method and the techniques to be adopted;

In the example of table 13, although the Kaizen technique had been the second recommended technique (TPM was the first recommended technique) by the original method, due to the fact that its adoption gap is higher than the TPM technique, the Kaizen technique became the first recommended technique;

c. The fact that the user knows minimally the concepts in the questioning proposed by the method in the user's own reality, makes the method to contribute to the user manager. The method would contribute very little if the user could not comprehend relatively well the content of the questioning that the method proposes the user to do. Once again, the fact that the method proposes to include only simple and well-known techniques definitely facilitates its application;