The competitive positions of manufacturing firms is typically considered to stem from the strategic alignment between market opportunities and manufacturing abilities; the foundation for manufacturing strategy. In this paper we investigate the role of alignment in a broader sense, including the business strategy. We review the concept of alignment between business strategy, manufacturing strategy, and other functional strategies, and develop a conceptual model linking alignment to manufacturing strength and operational performance. We test this model with data from the High Performance Manufacturing study; a total of 238 plants from three industries and eight countries. The results indicate that the alignment between manufacturing strategy and business strategy is of the utmost importance for manufacturing strength and subsequently high performance. The impact of alignment with other functional strategies is however non-significant. Still, the relationship between business strategy alignment and functional strategy alignment is significant. These results imply that the business strategy is well aligned with the functional strategies, including manufacturing strategy, while the link between functional strategies does not significantly support manufacturing as a competitive resource. The impact of manufacturing strength on operational performance is highly significant.