The authors argue that lean production should be driven by the desire to achieve optimal customer service by sensing and responding to the customer. The customer is at the center of the process and the organization needs to respond in a holistic way so that the customer can impact on the design and delivery of products and processes. The book is based upon substantial research and practice by leading practitioners and heralds a paradigm shift in thinking on these issues.

The authors argue that lean production should be driven by the desire to achieve optimal customer service by sensing and responding to the customer. The customer is at the centre of the process and the organisation needs to respond in a holistic way so that the customer can impact on the design and delivery of products and processes. The book is based upon substantial research and practice by leading practitioners and heralds a paradigm shift in thinking on these issues.

Customer Management Excellence determines the processes required for organisations to embark on service excellence programmes. It is designed to reduce the time of implementation from years to months, and discusses new thinking behind the emergence of customer service as a differentiator as well as exploring future trends.

This is very much a ‘How To’ book aimed at giving the reader a real competitive advantage. The case studies reflect the innovation, motivation and determination of some of the nation’s leading players in their pursuit of service excellence.

Customer Management Excellence is packed full with ‘readiness checklists’ enabling organisations to evaluate what needs to be put in place before embarking upon the service excellence journey.

Customer Management Excellence case studies focus on organisations who have achieved recognition through the National Customer Service Awards, an awards programme that runs in close association with Customer Management magazine. Both the National Customer Service Awards and Customer Management magazine fall under the umbrella of media and publishing company Quest Media.

Intelligent, autonomous systems will undeniably be a future Department of Defense force multiplier. Arguably, these systems could provide the U.S. military a decisive technological advantage over future adversaries. The past decade has witnessed an explosion in unmanned land, air, and sea vehicles. Although certain levels of autonomy have been achieved, these systems do not possess intelligent autonomy, and they cannot react to novel situations near human levels of decision-making in complex environments. The purpose of this paper is to examine enabling technologies in the areas of artificial intelligence, neuroscience, and computing for future intelligent autonomous systems. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency leads many efforts in these fields and has sponsored field initiatives to advance robotics technology, such as Urban Challenge. DARPA enlists both the university system and industry in their programs. These entities are making technological advances that will evolve DoD robotics to a level comparable to human operated systems. Priority must be placed on advancements in intelligence algorithms and architectures, as well as on breakthroughs in computing systems to operate these architectures. Without proper focus and priority on these key areas, the decisive technological advantage offered by intelligent autonomous robotics will be lost or catastrophically protracted.