This course is intended to provide an introduction to the strategic aspects of manufacturing management, in terms of an analysis of the environment in which manufacturing companies compete, the various dimensions of competitiveness, and how individual companies can maximise effective utilisation of their assets and hence increase their overall ability to compete. The covers topics such as Porter’s analysis, value chain analysis, competitive positioning, product - process choice, capacity strategies, focussed manufacturing, the experience curve, global and extended manufacturing enterprises, key performance indicators and cost models, strategy formulation and implementation. In addition, an introduction to accounting will be given to provide students with a basic understanding of the key financial statements and how the different transactions will affect these financial statements. Exposure to some of the internal controls and why they exist in organisations will be given to students. They will learn to analyse financial statements and make decisions using those statements. The basics of management accounting will be introduced including cost behaviour, cost-volume-profit analysis, costing and budgeting.