Some of the highlights and comments on the propositions presented in the paper:

From the point of view HRM, it is important to show how various HRM practices can have an impact on the performance of an organization especially in a manufacturing organization where HR is traditionally considered as a secondary function. For the effective performance of the organization, Human resources should design some of the best practices that can have a direct impact on some of the dimensions that measure performance. The paper shows a direct relation between some of the practices and the dimensions like flexibility, quality etc. However most of these practices are inter-related and their impact in the organization can be mostly measured collectively. Training is one of the key areas which manufacturing organizations should focus on as its impact on quality and cost effectiveness can be measured easily and effectively. Instead we, as a group, recommend HR to quantify the impact of Training practices in the organization. To make senior management more serious about the impact of these practices, HR should provide the cost implications of these practices. The organizations should try to measure the savings that training can have in terms of the savings by hiring less from the outside, savings due to better quality of products and consequently less defects and less aftersales services, etc. As already mentioned in the paper, training plays a direct role in some of the manufacturing strategies like JIT and TQM, also, training always plays a big role in shaping the skills and abilities of the employee and workers which add to the human capital base of the organization. Concentrating on the 4 specific dimensions ie. Cost, quality, flexibility and time, of manufacturing performance allows to formulate action guidelines for the managers. The paper has measured how a bundle of HRM practices have an impact on the various dimensions of manufacturing performance. An important conclusion of the study is the way different HRM factors discussed in the paper have a relation among themselves. As it can be interpreted that flexibility is negatively related to the quality factor. An organization, as per their need, needs to develop the right balance between these factors. For example, an organization seeking strict conformance to specification would not want to give too much flexibility in the organization. Such balance needs to be established depending on the strategy of the organization. The practice of cross-functional teams, cross training and broad jobs provides many advantages to the business strategically. However, it might be difficult to implement these practices initially as they consume time and some of the important resources. Job rotation can be one of the programs that can help in developing flexible cross-functional teams. As the research has also indicated, we believe that linking the best HRM practices with the manufacturing performance can have an impact on the bottom-line of the organization. And hence these practices need to be implemented in a way that they fit the strategies of the organization.