In the face of today's environmental and economic challenges, doomsayers preach that the only way to stave off disaster is for humans to reverse course: to de-industrialize, re-localize, ban the use of modern energy sources, and forswear prosperity. But in this provocative and optimistic rebuke to the catastrophists, Robert Bryce shows how innovation and the inexorable human desire to make things Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper is providing consumers with Cheaper and more abundant energy, Faster computing, Lighter vehicles, and myriad other goods. That same desire is fostering unprecedented prosperity, greater liberty, and yes, better environmental protection.Utilizing on-the-ground reporting from Ottawa to Panama City and Pittsburgh to Bakersfield, Bryce shows how we have, for centuries, been pushing for Smaller Faster solutions to our problems. From the vacuum tube, mass-produced fertilizer, and the printing press to mobile phones, nanotech, and advanced drill rigs, Bryce demonstrates how cutting-edge companies and breakthrough technologies have created a world in which people are living longer, freer, healthier, lives than at any time in human history.The push toward Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper is happening across multiple sectors. Bryce profiles innovative individuals and companies, from long-established ones like Ford and Intel to upstarts like Aquion Energy and Khan Academy. And he zeroes in on the energy industry, proving that the future belongs to the high power density sources that can provide the enormous quantities of energy the world demands.The tools we need to save the planet aren't to be found in the technologies or lifestyles of the past. Nor must we sacrifice prosperity and human progress to ensure our survival. The catastrophists have been wrong since the days of Thomas Malthus. This is the time to embrace the innovators and businesses all over the world who are making things Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper.

The future for all the nations of the world, whether diverse- or single-commodity countries, is bound up in effective economic development. In particular, an understanding of the relationship between a government and its private business sector is becoming an increasingly important factor in the management of economic growth. This work presents the results of a study that focuses on efforts to stimulate private industrial investment in the manufacturing sector of the Saudi Arabian economy. The conclusions help to shed light on the interplay of government-business relationships not only in Saudi Arabia, but in other developing countries as well.

The study, conducted in 1986, included a series of interviews with manufacturing executives, government officials, and chamber of commerce members. Wahib Soufi and Richard Mayer begin their analysis with an overview of government and business in Saudi Arabia, assessing the role played by Islamic law and the need for diversification. They follow this by sketching a conceptual framework for examining government-business relationships, and outlining issues relevant to promoting industrial development. A set of three chapters explore the results of the survey data, detailing the perceptions of the Saudi private business sector, comparing business and government perceptions, and finally, evaluating the effect of communications, expectations, and perceptions on the government-business relationship. The concluding chapter reexamines these conclusions on the basis of information available three years after the initial study, and is followed by a selective bibliography. This important study will be a valuable resource for corporate managers and government officials involved in economic planning, and a useful reference tool for college courses in business and economic policy and for public and academic libraries.

Recent improvements in business process strategies have allowed more opportunities to attain greater developmental performances. This has led to higher success in day-to-day production and overall competitive advantage. The Handbook of Research on Manufacturing Process Modeling and Optimization Strategies is a pivotal reference source for the latest research on the various manufacturing methodologies and highlights the best optimization approaches to achieve boosted process performance. Featuring extensive coverage on relevant areas such as genetic algorithms, fuzzy set theory, and soft computing techniques, this publication is an ideal resource for researchers, practitioners, academicians, designers, manufacturing engineers, and institutions involved in design and manufacturing projects.

In recent years much has been made of the sucess of developing countries, particularly in East Asia, which have achieved economic growth by manufacturing goods which are then exported to developing economies.
"Manufacturing for Export in the Developing" "World" looks at a number of countries which have tried to affect a similar transition. It combines case studies of five countries with an introduction that considers the overall contact and conclusions. The book uncovers serious potential difficulties in maintaining the pace of manufacturing for export in the developing countries, and shows that there is no simple relationship between import liberalization and manufacturing for export.

In today's fast-paced and volatile business environment, customers are demanding increased flexibility and lower cost, and companies must operate in a waste-free environment to maintain a competitive edge and grow margins. Lean Enterprise is the process that companies are adopting to provide superior customer service and to improve bottom line performance. Are you contemplating Lean for your manufacturing or office facility? Are you already implementing Lean but are dissatisfied with the speed of change? Do your employees think that Lean is just the new flavor of the month? Are you being forced to go Lean by your customers or your competitors? Are you anticipating going offshore to cut costs? Regardless of your situation, this book is designed to help guide you through the Lean transformation and avoid the pitfalls. Find out why many companies are failing to live up to the promise of Lean, and why there may be alternatives to outsourcing or going offshore. Learn from the mistakes of others and avoid the trials that often kill the initiative. Find out why you must change, how to change, and how to institutionalize the process. Understand the costs of outsourcing or going offshore and compare these to the Lean alternative. For those companies that fail to commit to the process and truly change the culture, a Lean Enterprise will remain elusive. This is the revised, second edition of this highly-acclaimed book with a new foreword by Dolf Kahle, CEO of Visual Marketing Systems.

This contributed volume provides 11 illustrative case studies of technological transformation in the global pulp and paper industry from the inception of mechanical papermaking in early nineteenth century Europe until its recent developments in today's business environment with rapidly changing market dynamics and consumer behaviour. It deals with the relationships between technology transfer, technology leadership, raw material dependence, and product variety on a global scale. The study itemises the main drivers in technology transfer that affected this process, including the availability of technology, knowledge, investments and raw materials on the one hand, and demand characteristics on the other hand, within regional, national and transnational organisational frameworks. The volume is intended as a basic introduction to the history of papermaking technology, and it is aimed at students and teachers as course material and as a handbook for professionals working in either industry, research centres or universities. It caters to graduate audiences in forestry, business, technical sciences, and history.

The United States is becoming an information-based, service economy with fewer middle-income jobs than in an industrial economy. How does increasing service sector employment affect community income and thus social well-being? This well-documented study assesses the impact of changing levels of employment in the service and manufacturing sectors on the level and distribution of community income. The study includes both analyses of low-wage and high-wage service and manufacturing sectors and analyses of major segments of the service sector, including business services and retail trade. Measures of social well-being include changes in community aggregate income, aggregate wages and salaries, distribution of income within the community, and the community's position in the regional hierarchy. Particular attention is given to differences in impact on rural and urban communities. The book will be of interest to those concerned with rural economic development and issues related to inequality and economic and industrial change.

Oliver Wight is one of the pioneers of Manufacture Resource Planning (MRPII). Here he introduces the essential concepts and benefits of MRPII in a practical format with easy-to-follow question-and-answer format. Among MRPII topics covered are: how MRPII can benefit a business, the executive's leadership role in implementation, the requirements of a successful MRPII implementation, guidelines for making MRPII effective in any organization, and managing MRPII for long-term competitive advantage.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is an important element in creating competitive advantages for enterprises in different sectors. The authors guide readers through the different cases studies in order to present the benchmarking of international standards and CSR initiatives, as well as CSR performance evaluation practices. This book aims to identify current problems that can arise during CSR implementation in manufacturing and services companies. Moreover some best practice examples suitable for the introduction of CSR in the small and medium size companies will be described. The authors show how different stakeholders can benefit from sustainable resource management and pro-social behaviors. This book will be a valuable resource for both academics and practitioners who want to deepen their knowledge of CSR. This scientific monograph has been doubled blind reviewed.

What are the forces that are driving firms and industries to globalize their operations? This volume explores how specific industries have organized their global operations through case studies of seven manufacturing industries: garments and textiles, automobiles and auto parts, televisions, hard disk drives, flat panel displays, semiconductors, and personal computers. Based on long-term research sponsored by the Sloan Foundation, the chapters provide readers with a nuanced understanding of the complex matrix of factor costs, access to inimitable capabilities, and time-based pressures that influence where firms decide to locate particular segments of the value chain.
The book examines globalization within the context of five factors affecting locational decisions: advances in transportation and communication; the clustering of knowledge assets; the drive to reduce cycle times; the commodification of existing products; and the relative advantages of proximity to customers. The case studies are framed by Paul Deguid's Preface on the significance of power in value chains and Bruce Kogut's conclusion on the importance of knowledge in locational decisions. Together, the chapters reveal a remarkable diversity of responses across industries to these forces, and suggest that any understanding of globalization must appreciate this diversity.
This volume is ideal for both MBA and undergraduate students studying the location of economic activities by multinational firms.

"Presenting findings from research into Sweden's leading multinationals this book focuses on engineering companies operating in global industries such as pharmaceutical, aerospace, packing systems and automotive. It explores research and practice within the area of HRM focusing on project-based organizations"--

This annotated bibliography of 19th-century literature by and about American textile factory workers examines 457 texts, including novels, short fiction, poetry, drama, narratives, and children's literature, and offers new insights into 19th-century working-class culture. The textile industry was the premier and largest 19th-century industry in the United States. The texts, drawn from a variety of publications, such as workers' periodicals, mainstream publishers' monographs, newspapers, magazines, story papers, dime novels, pulp publications, and Sunday-school tracts, reveal the variety and complexity of the factory literature and represent the largest body of American working-class women's literature. The literature explores a number of women's concerns, such as their roles as workers, sexual harassment, marriage, motherhood, and homosexual and heterosexual relationships, and treats the factory work experience of hundreds of thousands of 19th-century children. Annotations are divided among 14 topical chapters that highlight such key issues as women's independence, class bias, child labor, technology, and protest. Most entries include information on text availability, including microform reprints and U.S. library holdings for rare titles. Scholars of 19th-century women's literature and history will value the full picture of 19th-century factory women's lives that emerges through the synopses of the literature. This work includes the first literary depictions of and protest against child labor, the first anti-factory poem, and the first fictional depiction of a strike. The more than 50 annotated texts that treat child labor offer new source material for the study of child labor in19th-century America. Appendices furnish a chronological listing of titles, a selection of nonfiction texts, and a listing of unavailable texts.

This book examines the U.S. pulp and paper industry between 1900 and 1940, the period when pulp and paper production relocated from the North to the South and the West. This relocation was one of the most influential shifts in industrial production in the 20th century, ranking second in extent of out-migration only to the exit of the cotton textile industry in roughly the same period. This study focuses on the reason for the shift, with an emphasis on the interrelationships among firm location, industrial structure, vertical integration, and firm survival and growth. The work opens with an introductory summary of the economic background of the industry during the period and, then, provides a more detailed description of economic trends in pulp and paper production from 1900 to 1940. Chapter 3 analyzes the relocation of pulp and paper production to the South and the Pacific Coast. Chapter 4 discusses the structure of the industry in light of modern industrial organization theory. The vertical integration of pulp and paper production is covered in chapters 5 and 6, and chapter 7 analyzes mill survival and growth. The final chapter reviews the study's major findings. The book will be of interest to economic historians, industrial economists, and students of economic geography, development economics, and regional economics.