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Project management--United States, New products--United States--Management, Production management--United States, and Manufacturing industries--United States--Case studies

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.

Creative ability in business, Technological innovations, Information technology, and Research, Industrial

The innovation process is the most important of all business processes. Innovation is the means by which value is constructed and efficiencies are created. It is the source of sustainable competitive advantage. This book shows how the innovation process is changing profoundly. Part of the change results from the application of new technologies to the innovation process itself. A new category of technology has emerged which we call'innovation technology'. This includes simulation and modelling, visualization, and rapid prototyping technologies. When used effectively, innovation technology makes the innovation process more economical and ameliorates some of its uncertainties. These technological changes are accompanied by changing organization structures and skills requirements. The technologies are used in fast moving, creative environments and are suited to project-based organization. They also require the development of new'craft'skills to realize the possibilities created by the new'code'. The book outlines a new way of thinking about innovation. Traditional definitions of'research','development'and'engineering', imply a progressive linearity which doesn't exist in reality. They are also associated with organizational departments, which are breaking down where once they existed, and are in any case non-existent in the vast majority of firms. They also fail to capture the central importance of design in innovation. We propose a new schema for the innovation process: Think, Play, Do. Innovation requires creating new ideas and thinking about new options, playing with them to see if they are practical, economical and marketable, and then doing: making the innovation real. This new schema captures the emerging innovation process using a more contemporary idiom. The book reports in-depth studies from a number of companies and sectors. Major case studies of Procter and Gamble and Arup Partners are presented. It reports on the use of innovation technology in a range of other companies and organizations, from pharmaceuticals in GSK, to engineering design in Ricardo engineering, and welding in TWI. We describe how innovation technology is used in traditional industries, such as in mining, and in public projects, such as the development of London's traffic congestion charge and the stabilization of the leaning tower of Pisa.

Future, Prototypes, Technology, Design, Crowdfunding, Makerspace, Materiality, Technologization, Social Practice, Prototyping, Science, Society, Sociology of Technology, Sociology of Science, Sociological Theory, Sociology, Zukunft, Prototypen, Technik, Materialität, Technologisierung, Soziale Praxis, Wissenschaft, Gesellschaft, Techniksoziologie, Wissenschaftssoziologie, Soziologische Theorie, Soziologie, and bic Book Industry Communication::P Mathematics & science::PD Science: general issues::PDR Impact of science & technology on society

Prototypes migrate from the workshops to society. They are no longer considered deficient because of incomplete objects. Rather, it is through the design of the material provisional that the social day after tomorrow is shaped and technologised. The production and reception of these artefacts is transformed from an exclusive expert activity to a public social practice: Prototypes are produced in publicly accessible Makerspaces and celebrated in urban event formats. Sascha Dickel shows that this can also be accompanied by a new form of criticism that does not oppose the technologization of the social, but opens up ways to design alternative futures in a technologically integrated world.
Prototypen wandern aus den Werkstätten in die Gesellschaft. Sie gelten nicht länger als defizitäre, weil unvollständige Objekte. Vielmehr wird gerade durch das Design des materiell Vorläufigen das gesellschaftliche Übermorgen gestaltet und technologisiert. Die Produktion und Rezeption dieser Artefakte verwandelt sich dabei von einer exklusiven Expertentätigkeit zu einer öffentlichen sozialen Praxis: Prototypen werden in öffentlich zugänglichen Makerspaces hergestellt und in urbanen Eventformaten zelebriert. Sascha Dickel zeigt, dass damit auch eine neue Form der Kritik einhergehen kann, die nicht gegen die Technologisierung des Sozialen opponiert, sondern Wege erschließt, in einer technologisch verbauten Welt alternative Zukünfte zu entwerfen.

architecture, architectural design, built environment, physical environment, and bic Book Industry Communication::A The arts::AM Architecture::AMC Architectural structure & design

Design Transactions presents the outcome of new research to emerge from ‘Innochain’, a consortium of six leading European architectural and engineering-focused institutions and their industry partners. The book presents new advances in digital design tooling that challenge established building cultures and systems. It offers new sustainable and materially smart design solutions with a strong focus on changing the way the industry thinks, designs, and builds our physical environment. Divided into sections exploring communication, simulation and materialisation, Design Transactions explores digital and physical prototyping and testing that challenges the traditional linear construction methods of incremental refinement. This novel research investigates ‘the digital chain’ between phases as an opportunity for extended interdisciplinary design collaboration. The highly illustrated book features work from 15 early-stage researchers alongside chapters from world-leading industry collaborators and academics.

Cyber-physical systems, IoT, Engineering Economics, Organization, Logistics, Marketing, Robotics and Automation, Cyber-Physical Systems, Industrial Management, Industrial Automation, Open Access, Semantic Web Technologies, Simulation-based Decision Making, Cycle Time Modeling, Automated Material Handling system, Material Flow Simulation, Digitalized Workplaces, Automated Decision-making, Cross Factory Decision-making, Mixed Criticality Systems, Digital twin, Rapid Prototyping, System dynamic simulation, Return on quality, iDev40, EADTC 2018, EADTC 2019, Electrical engineering, Cybernetics & systems theory, Engineering: general, Management of specific areas, Robotics, bic Book Industry Communication::T Technology, engineering, agriculture::TH Energy technology & engineering::THR Electrical engineering, bic Book Industry Communication::T Technology, engineering, agriculture::TB Technology: general issues::TBC Engineering: general, and bic Book Industry Communication::T Technology, engineering, agriculture::TJ Electronics & communications engineering::TJF Electronics engineering::TJFM Automatic control engineering::TJFM1 Robotics

This open access book reports on cutting-edge electrical engineering and microelectronics solutions to foster and support digitalization in the semiconductor industry. Based on the outcomes of the European project iDev40, which were presented at the two first conference editions of the European Advances in Digital Transformation Conference (EADCT 2018 and EADTC 2019), the book covers different, multidisciplinary aspects related to digital transformation, including technological and industrial developments, as well as human factors research and applications. Topics include modeling and simulation methods in semiconductor operations, supply chain management issues, employee training methods and workplaces optimization, as well as smart software and hardware solutions for semiconductor manufacturing. By highlighting industrially relevant developments and discussing open issues related to digital transformation, the book offers a timely, practice-oriented guide to graduate students, researchers and professionals interested in the digital transformation of manufacturing domains and work environments.