Global production and the intensifying competitive challenges in the world market calls for an understanding of how strategic improvements can be made at the supply chain, enterprise and operations level. Global Manufacturing Management aims at giving students a holistic theoretical foundation and analytical skills to effectively address these challenges. The students will gain a broad and integrated set of capabilities, combining engineering and management competences with a global perspective.

NTNU is a world leader in the education of manufacturing and logistics. Global Manufacturing Management (GMM) is a collaboration between The Department of Production and Quality Engineering and The Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management. Through close cooperation with the industry you will gain a broad, interdisciplinary knowledge with a global perspective.

Globalization has economic, technological, cultural and political aspects. Insight and understanding of these aspects are Important in order to lead projects and technology across national boundaries. Knowledge of strategic management is the key to successful global players; simultaneously the technology and engineering knowledge is fundamental to all technology leaders. This programme provides an in-depth understanding of a company's strategic position and how to develop competitive advantage in the global market.

Production of products to a global market arise several issues:
 

• Should we expand existing plants or build new? How does this affect the scale advantages?
• Where should a new plant be located? Is there a supply of cheap labor, or is skilled labor more important? Will political instability or cultural differences become problematic?
• Where should we produce the goods? Should each plant produce a particular commodity or should all of the factories in a manufacturing network produce the same products? And where do we position the development departments?
• How are the assignments in the production network coordinated and managed? Should the various factories compete with each other or should they cooperate to develop better production methods?
• How do we collaborate across the value chain? How is the relationship with suppliers of raw material or other important components? 
• Who is the customer and how do we communicate with them? What IT systems allow us to share important real-time information between different companies?

These are examples of some of the issues that you will meet through this programme. The programme focuses on strategic management of manufacturing in an international value chain. This means that one must combine interdisciplinary experience and theoretical insights from many different disciplines such as industrial economics, purchasing, logistics, technology management, cultural, political science, project management, manufacturing strategy, supply chain management and knowledge management.

In the second semester, students take a course on systems engineering that gives a laboratory interdisciplinary experience. 

The Master of Science (MSc) in Global Manufacturing Management is a two-year full-time degree programme (120 ECTS credits) targeted toward both Norwegian and international students.