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 manufacturer that can initiate successful projects--leading to new products and processes--will be the one that prospers in the years ahead. They reveal how to launch a successful project and how projects can be mechanisms for growth and learning for the firm. 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 are able to use their Core Capabilities across functions, to bring together disciplines and personnel crucial to the success of the program. They have a Guiding Vision, shared by all members of the project team, that helps coordinate the actions of workers with different skills and priorities. They Push the Performance Envelope, striving to make the improvements needed to cope with a rapidly changing competitive environment. They have Leadership, someone who can navigate uncertain terrain, who sees the project's essential elements and how they fit together. They instill the team with a sense of Ownership and Commitment, linking their personal success, status, and esteem to accomplishing project goals. They use Prototyping to learn rapidly and reduce mistakes. And they Integrate within Projects, approaching individual tasks in terms of a system-wide solution. Throughout the book, the authors illustrate 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); Ford's 1991 Crown Victoria, the first project launched under their Concept-to-Customer system; Chaparral Steel's development of the world's 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.

The Perpetual Enterprise Machine: Seven Keys to Corporate Renewal through Successful Product and Process Development

Business & Money

Clark, Kim B.

Wheelwright, Steven C.

Holloway, Charles A.

Bowen, H. Kent

Industries

Oxford University Press

We live in a dynamic economic and commerical world, surrounded by objects of remarkable complexity and power. In many industries, changes in products and technologies have brought with them new kinds of firms and forms of organization. We are discovering news ways of structuring work, of bringing buyers and sellers together, and of creating and using market information. Although our fast-moving economy often seems to be outside of our influence or control, human beings create the things that create the market forces. Devices, software programs, production processes, contracts, firms, and markets are all the fruit of purposeful action: they are designed. Using the computer industry as an example, Carliss Y. Baldwin and Kim B. Clark develop a powerful theory of design and industrial evolution. They argue that the industry has experienced previously unimaginable levels of innovation and growth because it embraced the concept of modularity, building complex products from smaller subsystems that can be designed independently yet function together as a whole. Modularity freed designers to experiment with different approaches, as long as they obeyed the established design rules. Drawing upon the literatures of industrial organization, real options, and computer architecture, the authors provide insight into the forces of change that drive today's economy.

Design Rules, Vol. 1: The Power of Modularity

Baldwin, Carliss Y.

Management & Leadership

Mit Pr

Design Rules, Volume 1: The Power of Modularity (The Mit Press)

Baldwin, Carliss Y. Y.

The MIT Press

"Generational" Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Systems and The Failure of Established Firms

Henderson, Rebecca

History

Franklin Classics

New products have been a source of fascination and excitement since the beginning of the age of mass production. Today, superiority in product development--moving new product concepts from R&amp;D to design and engineering to production and into the marketplace with speed and efficiency--is the hallmark of many of the world's most successful companies and a key source of competitive advantage.

Product Development Performance: Strategy, Organization, and Management in the World Auto Industry

Fujimoto, Takahiro

Harvard Business Review Press

Top product development companies gain competitive advantage by bringing rapidly evolving technologies to increasingly fragmented markets with speed, efficiency, and high quality. What is more, they use the talents from across the organization and those of suppliers, distributors, and customers to do it. This collection of articles and interviews from the Harvard Business Review further explores how these companies succeed, identifying strong leadership and a high degree of integration as the distinctive characteristics of organizations that achieve outstanding results from product development efforts. Featuring contributions from scholars and business leaders such as Ralph Gomory, Fumio Kodama, Edward McCracken, and the members of the Manufacturing Vision Group - an ad hoc team of academics and industry experts who studied development projects in five companies over four years - this volume offers a variety of perspectives useful to technical, functional, and general managers alike. The Product Development Challenge describes successful business practices in organizations that include Chaparral Steel, Eastman-Kodak, Ford Motor, Hewlett-Packard, Honda, and Silicon Graphics, Inc., addresses organizational challenges; and provides frameworks for managing the processes, innovations, and R&amp;D efforts that will lead to the winning product development projects of tomorrow - not just in high technology companies, but in any manufacturing environment.

The Product Development Challenge: Competing Through Speed, Quality, and Creativity

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Andesite Press

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.  This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible.  Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.   This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations.  Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc.  Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

"Generational" innovation: the reconfiguration of existing systems and the failure of established firms - Scholar's Choice Edition

Scholar's Choice

Leading Through: Activating the Soul, Heart, and Mind of Leadership

Clark, Jonathan R.

Clark, Erin E.

Business Culture

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