U.S. manufacturing is today in a critical period. As a consequence of new global competitors, changes in technologies, and significant shifts in national priorities, our manufacturing base has shrunk alarmingly and thousands of manufacturing jobs have been lost. To address this problem, a unique team was formed called the Manufacturing Vision Group, which included members from five major companies (Chaparral Steel, DEC, Ford Motor Company, Hewlett-Packard, and Eastman Kodak) and four major universities (Harvard, MIT, Purdue, and Stanford). In The Perpetual Enterprise Machine, this group argues that the development project is the vehicle to change a firm's products, processes, and capabilities in order to compete successfully in today's dynamic business environment. The manufacturer that can execute successful projects - leading to new products and processes - will be the one that prospers in the years ahead. Projects become the mechanism for growth and learning for successful firms. The Perpetual Enterprise Machine outlines seven critical elements that outstanding development projects have in common, principles that can be powerful engines of success for the manufacturer facing the challenges of today's fiercely competitive environment. Successful firms recognize and nurture their core capabilities, which are uniquely defined by their hardware, software, and humanware systems and which are crucial to the success of projects. A guiding vision, shared by all members of the cross-functional teams has three levels of specificity. They push the performance envelope, using the immediate project goals to also push the company's capabilities along other dimensions (such as process technology).They have leadership, someone who can navigate uncertain terrain, who sees the project's essential elements from beginning to end, creating integrity in the project and its outcome. They instill the team with a sense of ownership and commitment, linking their personal success, status, and esteem to accomplishing project goals. They use multiple forms of prototyping to learn rapidly and reduce mistakes and misunderstandings. And they integrate within projects, approaching individual tasks in terms of a system-wide solution. Throughout the book, the Manufacturing Vision Group illustrates these seven principles with real life case histories. We see the story behind Kodak's development of the FunSaver camera (done on a unique CAD/CAM system that greatly helped integration and shortened the lead time from design to production); Fords 1991 Crown Victoria, the first project launched under its Concept-to-Customer system; Chaparral Steels development of the worlds first horizontal steel caster; and Hewlett-Packard's wildly successful DeskJet printer. The Perpetual Enterprise Machine delivers the insights of some of the top minds from industry and academia on one of the primary concerns of American business - how to revitalize our manufacturing industries. Visionary - yet engaging and immediately accessible - it gives managers the opportunity to profit from the trials and triumphs of five major corporations, and helps them shape the kinds of projects that will thrive and prosper in the years ahead.

Out at Home is the compelling story of Boston's racial divide viewed through the lens of one of the city's greatest institutions - its baseball team, and told from the perspective of Boston native and noted sports writer Howard Bryant. This well written and poignant work contains striking interviews in which blacks who played for the Red Sox speak for the first time about their experiences in Boston, as well as groundbreaking chapter that details Jackie Robinson's ill-fated tryout with the Boston Red Sox and the humiliation that followed.

This book is about making money out of the supply chain. It is impossible to improve the performance of any chain without a deep understanding of the impact of the weakest link in that chain - the constraint. Without a constraint management perspective both supply chain management and lean thinking lack focus and the real leverage that senior management with the manufacturing industry are seeking.
The book has been written for both practitioners and researcher alike. It will be an ideal textbook for anyone teaching operations management, and will also act as a useful guide for those seeking to improve the performance of their own company. The book draws on the author's own experiences within the UK manufacturing industry in implementing constraint management, using case studies to highlight the key issues faced in the journey to substantially enhanced bottom-line performance. The book examines the role of new product development, the role of production, the role of distribution, the development of the team, and the strategical focus required to turn the supply chain, or what the author calls the "Revenue Chain" into a real, practical, approach for any company.

eBook available with sample pages: 020330120X

Assessing the roles of capital, labour, and state, McNamara discovers a distinctive style of interest bargaining to bridge uncertainties and foster entrepreneurship. The textile industry serves as a microcosm of the broader social changes of the past five decades. Dramatic transitions from family firms to professional capitalism, from state direction to regulation, and from company unions to industry federations take centre stage. Moving among executives, labour leaders, and state officials, the author charts development across the crucible of contending interests. Stretching from high technology to labour-intensive production, the textile industry offers a new profile of democratization and market liberalization, and recently of globalization and adjustment in the wake of the Asian Financial Crisis.
The first comprehensive review of the past and present of a leading sector, the volume offers a new interpretation of society and market in South Korea. Drawing insights from the New Economic Sociology, this study sheds new light on social systems of production in the South Korean Miracle. Contrasts with Thailand and Japan bring the Korean experience of interest contention into a comparative context of Asian capitalism.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203361652

Tavistock Press was established as a co-operative venture between the Tavistock Institute and Routledge & Kegan Paul (RKP) in the 1950s to produce a series of major contributions across the social sciences. This volume is part of a 2001 reissue of a selection of those important works which have since gone out of print, or are difficult to locate. Published by Routledge, 112 volumes in total are being brought together under the name The International Behavioural and Social Sciences Library: Classics from the Tavistock Press. Reproduced here in facsimile, this volume was originally published in 1951 and is available individually. The collection is also available in a number of themed mini-sets of between 5 and 13 volumes, or as a complete collection.

On economies of scale during the nineteenth century, much is assumed, but little is known. This study, first published in 1985, seeks to close this gap in our knowledge by providing comprehensive empirical evidence on the status of economies of scale in mid-nineteenth century manufacturing industry. This evidence is in the form of production function estimates made using data from the manuscripts of the federal censuses of manufacturing for 1850, 1860 and 1870.

History is replete with examples of one political system replacing another, one scientific discovery invalidating another - and this cycle has occurred repeatedly in the production of goods and products for society. This book, first published in 1998, examines the massive transition currently taking place: the decline of the system of mass manufacturing. Various global changes in American business and manufacturing have forced a review of accepted thinking, and this book is a key text in this evaluation.

This title was first published in 2000: Steven Nivin analyzes a process vital to economic development - technological change. He furthers understanding of the processes driving innovation, so that we may gain a deeper insight into the development of economies. Specifically, the study explores the concept of innovation potential and the factors that result in variations in innovation potential across metropolitan areas, using the US machine tool industry as a case study. To provide a comparison, the same models are also estimated for the semiconductor industry. The findings indicate that urbanisation economies, localization economies, human capital, universities, and invention-derived knowledge are significant factors. The study assesses the contributions of three different skill levels of human capital; college-educated, graduate degree, and locally produced PhD's in mechanical and electrical engineering. Only the graduate and PhD degree measures are found to be significant, indicating the importance of having a highly skilled pool of labour within the region. The influences of the factors appear to be similar across industries, with some slight differences. The transfer of knowledge through patents is also studied. It is found that the transmission of this knowledge is slower between different industries, relative to the transmission within the same industry.

Series Information:
Transnational Business and Corporate Culture: Problems and Opportunities

In response to domestic and international competitive pressures, manufacturers are having to increase expenditure in both labour and technology. This book examines the relationship between organisational performance, advanced manufacturing technologies and workforce development activities.

When a pharmaceutical company decides to build a Quality System, it has to face the fact that there aren't any guideline that define exactly how such a system has to be built. With terms such as quality system, quality assurance, and quality management used interchangeably, even defining the system's objectives is a problem. This book provides a practical guide to building a quality system. Beginning with explanations of key terms and concepts, it covers ISO 9000 and GMP and how to combine them, and includes a matrix showing their similarities and differences. Implementation reviews illustrate how Quality (Management) Systems have been installed successfully in pharmaceutical companies. Also covered are the individual components of a Quality System; auditing, validation, and supplier qualification systems; and Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP).

Project management is a system originally developed within the construction industry for controlling schedules, costs, and specifications of large multitask projects. In recent years, manufacturers have discovered that project management's time-tested techniques dovetail neatly with the current thinking on quality control and management in a highly competitive global marketplace. The system has been increasingly recognized for its suitability in the manufacturing process and is now applied in virtually every area of production.

One of the foremost proponents of this trend is Adedeji Badiru, an internationally recognized authority on project management, whose books have helped thousands of companies adapt the system to their particular needs. This completely revised Second Edition of Badiru's breakthrough publication, Project Management in Manufacturing and High Technology Operations, focuses on the dramatic increase in the use of high-tech machinery in industrial operations, and seamlessly integrates high-tech themes into a general discussion of project management.

An introductory chapter on manufacturing analysis investigates how the latest concepts and techniques of project management are applied to manufacturing. The main body of the book offers a wealth of new material, including discussions of learning curve analysis, basic models for forecasting and inventory control, economic analysis of manufacturing, techniques for data analysis, and the application of expert systems. The chapter on computer applications in project management is completely revised and updated to reflect the enormous strides taken in this area in recent years.

This book presents an up-to-date, practical approach to project management in manufacturing. Written by a pioneer in the application of project management to the manufacturing industries, this revised and expanded Second Edition of Project Management in Manufacturing and High Technology Operations reflects the increased use of high-tech machinery in industrial operations and the trends of recent years to apply project management methods to every phase of production.

Complete with numerous illustrations, as well as exercises to wrap up each chapter, this Second Edition features:

• An emphasis on practical examples, including many new case studies, and a full chapter on the lessons learned from the space shuttle Challenger disaster
• Many new project management concepts and techniques that focus on manufacturing but can be applied to any project

A new chapter on manufacturing systems analysis that provides the backdrop for the project analysis that takes place throughout the book

Expanded discussions of the latest quantitative and managerial approaches, including learning curve analysis, basic models for forecasting and inventory control, economic analysis of manufacturing, techniques for data analysis, and the application of expert systems

A strong international perspective, useful for multinational companies and for academic purposes

This book equips engineers and managers with the tools to effectively manage all aspects of a project, including quality control, schedules, and expenses. Used as a text in engineering or business courses, it offers absorbing supplemental reading for students at the upper undergraduate and graduate levels.

Professor Badiru has been widely praised for his incisive and highly relevant case studies. In this Second Edition, the case-study approach is expanded so that chapters typically include two real-world examples of the project management techniques or issues in question. In the final chapter, Badiru takes a close and painful look at a high-tech disaster, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. He offers rare and instructive insight into the devastating failure of a high-tech project—still poignant, despite the passage of time.

Communicative throughout, this volume provides a solid, up-to-date reference for engineers and managers in manufacturing, as well as for consultants and administrators in related fields. Professor Badiru's proven reputation for providing interesting lecture material also makes Project Management in Manufacturing and High Technology Operations especially useful as a technology management text in both engineering and business schools.

Cover Design/Illustration: David Levy

As organizations move into the future, the operations environment needs to expand into Collaborative Planning and Forecast Replenishment (CPFR), Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI), and an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) operating system to become and remain competitive. These innovative and complex methods require an unprecedented degree of accuracy and knowledge of the basics in operations management. Back to Basics: Your Guide to Manufacturing Excellence details the key concepts necessary to expertly apply new approaches such as ERP, CPFR, VMI, and much more.

Based on the popular "Back to Basics" columns that appear in the magazine APICS: The Performance Advantage, the structure of the book allows for sufficient development of each topic and is short enough to be quickly read. Topics include: capacity, inventory, inventory accuracy, part numbering, processes, problem solving, and general managerial guidelines. Each chapter has everything you need to understand the issues and their implications.
Many careers in operations management begin with production and inventory control. When entering this field, you need to know the basics - in a hurry. Developing excellence takes time and usually comes through the "school of hard knocks". Whether new on the job, or brushing up to implement the latest technology, Back to Basics: Your Guide to Manufacturing Excellence gives you the information you need to become an expert - quickly.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book analyzes the development of economic events in Japan, China, the NICs, Russia, Germany, Britain, and the United States of America during the second half of the twentieth century in an effort to uncover the variables that were determinant for the generation of economic growth. After analyzing numerous economic and non-economic variables, the author manages to identify a common denominator that was always present when there was growth and absent when there was stagnation. A strong causality linkage is established between this common denominator and growth. The book also demonstrates how this common set of variables can be easily manipulated by government policy in order to deliver fast and sustained economic growth. The book concludes with a clear set of macroeconomic policies for the attainment of fast, non-inflationary growth in developing countries, middle-income nations, transition economies, and developed countries.

Despite its unorthodox position, the book endorses free trade, privatization, liberalization, fiscal rectitude, low inflation, central bank independence, proper governance, protection of the environment, and better income distribution. With this approach, the book offers a fresh new look on the problem of growth and offers hope that economic science will finally provide governments with an effective policy tool for the elimination of poverty and unemployment.

The Business of New Process Diffusion explores entrepreneurship, innovation and process diffusion through the example of the development of float glass. The significance of the glass industry as a vehicle for studying innovation activities has been recognised for some time. By using it as an example to draw out the key themes of innovation and diffusion theory, this book uses its specific industrial history to form an illuminating case study. Little has been written in terms of the management of the early float glass start-ups, resulting in a gap in the literature. This book seeks to remedy this by recounting developments through the lens of one of the leading glass technologists involved in the process at the time, using historical and archival material, and artefacts from the period. It illustrates the business origins of the process and its invention, progressing to innovation, competition in the market, first successful production, licensing and patents, and the management of the start-ups leading to market leadership: all significant to the study of technology, entrepreneurship and innovation. This short-form volume provides a concise but rich resource for researchers and students of the theory and practice of innovation, new process diffusion and start-up management.

The phenomena of Japan emerging as one of the most competitive industrial nations in the twentieth century and the general shift of competitiveness to East Asia since the 1980s have been widely studied by many scholars from different fields of the social sciences. Drawing on sources from Japanese, Swiss, and American archives, the historical analysis of this book tackles a wide range of actors and sheds light on the various processes that enabled Japanese watch companies to transfer technology and expand commercially starting in the second half of the nineteenth century. By exploring the case of the watch industry, this book serves to establish a better understanding of the origins of the competitiveness of Japanese manufacturing and its evolution until its decline in the post-bubble economy (in the 1990s and 2000s).

Against the backdrop of growing anti-globalisation sentiments and increasing fragmentation of the production process across countries, this book addresses how the Indonesian economy should respond and how Indonesia should shape its trade and industrial policies in this new world trade environment. The book introduces evaluation not on tariffs but on new trade instruments such as non-tariff measures (SPS, TBT, export measures and beyond border measures), and looks at industrial policies from a broader perspective such as investment, accessing inputs, labour, services, research and innovation policies.

Originally published in 1992, Capital Mobilization and Regional Financial Markets, argues that barriers to financial flows within regions may be as important in affecting capital flows as interregional barriers. The book conjectures that regional markets allow efficient mobilization of local funds and develops an analytical framework to motivate an investigation of region financial development in the Pacific Coast states between 1850 and 1920.

This volume comprehensively captures trends in productivity and its determinants in the post-reform period for Indian manufacturing. It provides an up-to-date survey of different methods employed in measuring productivity and their applications across organized and unorganized sectors, including food, beverages, furniture, gems, chemicals, petroleu

Originally published in 1991, Financial Market Liberalization in Chile, 1973-1982, analyses the liberalization of the financial market which took place during the 1973-1982 monetarist experiment. The book addresses the effect this had on the Chilean economy and how this affected effects of the behaviour of the firms which went bankrupt during this period. The book also presents a description of the policies implemented in the Chilean economy during this period and examines the impact that this had on the performance of the financial sector.

The book represents a continuation of research begun by Cooper in Hong Kong in the early 1970s among expatriate artisan furniture makers and woodcarvers from Dongyang County, Zhejiang Province. He now sets out to investigate the fate of the same craft in the hands of the same folk under totally different socio-economic conditions in their native county in communist People's Republic of China.

Este libro ofrece una introducci?n clara y completa al "Just-in-Time" y sigue siendo uno de nuestros ?xitos de mayor venta. El texto esta basado en seminarios dictados por Taichi Ohno, creador del Just-in-Time para entrenar a los suplidores de Toyota. La verdad que descubrio el Sr. Ohno, es que la mejora nunca se detiene - un concepto basado en la tradicion samurai en la cual un guerrero (gerente) nunca deja de perfeccionar su estilo (su habilidad de administrar), y nunca deja de pulir su espada (mejorar el proceso y el producto). Al leer este libro, usted vera claramente la magia del sistema Toyota. Los conceptos aqui expuestos se pueden aplicar a fabricaci?n repetitiva, industrias de procesos, a casi todo tipo de empresa de fabricaci?n, e inclusive a oficinas. (Esta edicion incluye material adicional preparado por Yasuhiro Monden, una autoridad en cuanto al sistema de producci?n de Toyota.)

The book represents a continuation of research begun by Cooper in Hong Kong in the early 1970s among expatriate artisan furniture makers and woodcarvers from Dongyang County, Zhejiang Province. He now sets out to investigate the fate of the same craft in the hands of the same folk under totally different socio-economic conditions in their native county in communist People's Republic of China.

This classic work, first published in 1958, is a seminal text in international business history. This new, substantially updated and revised edition is being published on the fortieth anniversary of the first edition. Features of the revised edition include:
* a new introduction
* a new concluding chapter
* amendments and additions to the original text
* a new statistical appendix which examines the main features and significance of the US penetration of UK industry over the past four decades.
Professor Dunning is one of the most internationally renowned and respected scholars in international business research. The updated version of this highly regarded book is a major contribution to studies in international business history.