The illusion of ‘best practice’ in information systems for operations management

This paper explores the adoption of information systems (IS) for operations management by manufacturing firms in four European countries. The notion of ‘best practice’ in information systems for operations management, as presented by technology suppliers (i.e. plain vanilla implementation of standard packages) is shown to be both illusory and potentially disruptive. In reality, firms usually reconfigure systems in order to use them effectively within their unique contexts. It is argued that the reason for this difference between technology supplier prescription of ‘best practice’ and user adoption of IS is because of the different interests of these two groups. Tensions exist at the interface between users who have unique manufacturing problems and demand flexible or customised information systems, and technology suppliers who have interests in promoting and supporting standardised solutions or methodologies. User firms need to recognise and address these tensions early when thinking about IS design.