Changing network structures in the plastics industry: from a slow changing to a fast changing industry

This paper presents a classification of company networks in the Finnish injection molding industry. The research question is how the change in business environment, from a slow changing to fast changing environment has affected company network structures in this industry. On the basis of the authors' research, they classified company networks in the injection molding industry into three categories: networks for producing simple plastic products; networks for producing complex plastic products; and future networks for plastic products. They noticed that product complexity had a great effect on network structure. They compared these network types with respect to several factors, such as product life cycle, production batch size, product quality requirements, coordination of the network role of different partners in the network, division of work and responsibilities, type of network relationship and amount and type of information flow in the network.