Abstract:
Manufacturing managers have a measurable frame that structures their response to the manufacturing
environment. This frame represents a set of assumptions, most importantly, about the relative prominence
..in the manufacturing domains, about the nature of people, and the sensemaking processes required to
understand the nature of the manufacturing environment as seen through the eyes of manufacturing
managers. This paper uses work in the area of text analysis and extends the scope of a methodology which
has been approached from two different directions by Carley (1997) and Gephart (1997). This
methodology is termed collocate analysis. Based on the analysis of text of interviews of Australian
manufacturing managers we have constructed mind maps of the concepts used by these managers. From an
analysis of these mind maps we argue that strategy plays a minor role in their thinking second only to the
improvement domain. Whereas design and related concepts play a dominant role in their day to day
thinking.
