This article has a twofold purpose. The first part deals with introduction of innovative high technology laser engineered net shaping (LENS) that offers a breakthrough in manufacturing, maintaining, and repairing products. It also presents many possibilities for the use of LENS technology, especially in the tool-making industry and for medical purposes. The second part presents a comparison of a product manufactured by conventional technologies and the same product manufactured by LENS technology. The product is a titanium alloy medical implant.

There has been an increasing call from academics specialising in operations management to integrate different strategic management perspectives into operations strategy research. Recently some pieces of operations strategy research have used the resource‐based view. It is often suggested that the incorporation of resource‐based view ideas into the field of operations strategy is a search for a new paradigm, yet the ever‐increasing literature suffers from a lack of empirical research. Moreover, operations strategy research from the evolutionary perspective, using longitudinal field data, is almost completely neglected. This paper attempts to make two contributions. The first is to stimulate debate about the incorporation of resource‐based view and dynamic capabilities within operations strategy research. The second is to present a model based on in‐depth field research where the dynamics of the capability accumulation process is explored.

The presented manuscript deals with the impact of manufacturing flexibility on cost-time investment as a function of sustainable production, which addresses the company’s sustainable social and environmental impact adequately. The impact of manufacturing flexibility on cost-time investment in the research sphere is not described, despite the fact that we know its key role in the high-mix low-volume production types. Recently, researchers have been addressing intensively the impacts of various parameters on the sustainable aspect and its dependence on manufacturing flexibility. The complexity of the influence parameters is reflected in the multi-criteria nature of optimization problems that can be solved with appropriate use of the evolutionary computation methods. The manuscript presents a new method of manufacturing flexibility modelling, with respect to the four-level architectural model, which reflected as a symmetry phenomena influence on the cost-time profile diagram. The solution to a complex optimization problem is derived using the proposed improved heuristic Kalman algorithm method. A new method is presented of optimization parameters’ evaluation with respect to the manufacturing flexibility impacts on cost-time investment. The large impact of appropriate multi-criteria optimization on a sustainably justified production system is presented, with the experimental work on benchmark datasets and an application case. The new method allows a comprehensive optimization approach, and validation of the optimization results by which we can provide more sustainable products, manufacturing processes, and increase the company’s total, social and environmental benefits.

This study presents an approach to solving the assembly line balancing problem (ALBP) using the Methods-Time Measurement (MTM) time standard and simulation software. ALBP is a common problem in manufacturing where a set of tasks with fixed times must be assigned to a series of sequential workstations in order to minimize the total idle time and reduce the assembly cost per product. This study uses MTM, a widely used production process scheduling method, to create a new time analysis of an assembly process that was previously balanced using the Work-Factor method and time study. This literature review shows that there are a lack of combinations of updated time analyses with newer simulation approaches in the current literature, and this was the motivation for the present work. An assembly line simulation was performed using Simio software to evaluate different design options and operating scenarios. The results show that the use of MTM and simulation can help minimize idle time and improve assembly line performance, thereby reducing costs and increasing efficiency. This study shows that the approach of using MTM and simulation is effective in solving ALBP and is a useful tool for manufacturing companies to improve the performance of their assembly lines and reduce costs.

Value stream optimization is very important for lean manufacturing efforts. This paper introduces the framework for value stream optimization by combining value stream costing and cost-time profile. Value stream mapping represent very efficient tool for visualization of activities within production flow focused on activity duration with the purpose to eliminate non-value added activities. Besides shortening of lead time, cost reduction is also imperative for every company, so monitoring and control of manufacturing cost over the time can be driving force for improvement. Standard (traditional) accounting system, suitable for mass production, is focused on real cost of product calculation, how to allocate indirect manufacturing costs, excluding time dimension. Mass production era is over and new accounting systems are needed for modern manufacturing strategy, such as lean manufacturing. Lean accounting has been developed to support lean companies and avoid problems with traditional accounting system. Value stream costing is based on value stream and eliminate need for overhead allocation and calculation. Traditional accounting system is oriented to the product, but value stream costing analyze processes. On the other hand, cost-time profile is also powerful tool for visualization of cost accumulation during the time across entire production flow