Suchergebnisse

Intro -- The Innovation Ultimatum -- Contents -- Foreword: Don't Fear the Future . . . Prepare for It -- Introduction: To Survive, Every Company Must Become a Tech Company -- The Innovation Ultimatum -- Automation and Augmentation -- Product, Service, and Business-Model Innovation -- The Innovator's Palette -- Six Technologies Intimately Connect the Digital and Physical Worlds -- Winners Will Wield and Combine These Technologies Like Artists Use Color -- Expect More Change in the Next 10 Years Than the Last 40 -- Should I Be Afraid or Excited? -- Getting the Most Out of This Book -- Don't Panic -- Don't Wait -- Get Help -- Part I: Six Technologies That Will Reshape Business in the Next Decade -- Chapter 1: Artificial Intelligence -- What Is It and Why Is It Important? -- Electricity, Digital Computers, and Artificial Intelligence -- The Next Era of Computing: Traditional Digital versus Artificial Intelligence -- A 1950s Concept and 1980s Algorithms Meet Modern Computing Horsepower -- What Can You Do with It? -- Machine Vision: Computers Open Their Eyes -- Natural Language Processing and Voice Platforms -- Exploration and Discovery -- Better-Informed Decision-Making -- Predicting the Future -- Seeing the World through a New Lens with Super Sensors -- Solving Complex Problems by Learning from Experience -- Creating and Co-Creating Content -- Future Uses of AI -- How AI Works -- Neural Networks, Training, and Models -- Example: A Radiology AI -- Pattern Recognition -- Beyond Deep Learning: The Future of Artificial Intelligence -- Stagnation or Golden Age? -- Narrow, General, and Super Intelligence -- Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) -- Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) -- Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) -- Strategies to Get You Started -- Make Predictions about Customers, Operations, and Trends.

PurposeThe aim of this series of papers is to offer key insights from eminent professors or practitioners within the field of Operations Management. This is the second of a series of interviews with "Operations Masters" and future contributions will include a range of inputs from manufacturing and services, private and public sectors. This series aims to provide an important contribution to the understanding of the strategic importance of operations management in a range of settings.Design/methodology/approachAn interview with Professor Wickham, Emeritus Professor at Harvard Business School, a leading international figure in the field of operations management, whose contribution to operations manufacturing/strategy has been cited as seminal. The interview was conducted by Professor Steve Brown, Editor‐in‐Chief of International Journal of Operations & Production Management.FindingsWickham Skinner explains how he developed his reasoning behind his Harvard Business Review articles and books. He also describes how courses were developed at Harvard Business School to reflect the changing nature of business. He examines some of the challenges facing academics and practitioners alike in highly competitive, global business environments.Originality/valueProfessor Wickham Skinner is a leading international figure in the field of manufacturing and operations strategy. In this interview he offers key insights into how he first developed the notion of operations as a corporate concern. The message is highly relevant to academics and practitioners today.

PurposeThe aim of this series of papers is to offer key insights from eminent professors or practitioners within the field of Operations Management. This is the first of a series of interviews with "Operations Masters" and future contributions will include a range of inputs from manufacturing and services, private and public sectors. This series will provide an important contribution to the strategic importance of operations management in a range of settings.Design/methodology/approachAn interview with Professor Terry Hill, Emeritus Fellow at the University of Oxford, UK and a leading international figure in the field of operations management and operations strategy, conducted by Professor Steve Brown, Editor‐in‐Chief of International Journal of Operations & Production Management.FindingsTerry Hill explains that his motive when writing his seminal book Manufacturing Strategy in 1985, which built on the work of Wickham Skinner, was to fill the gaps in both the language and concepts that comprise operations strategy, which would enable operations executives to exercise their strategic roles more fully. He goes on to describe the challenges that still exist in getting operations strategy onto the agenda in most companies and in the classroom. Finally Terry Hill makes recommendations for research which would help to elevate the strategic importance of operations.Originality/valueProfessor Terry Hill is a leading international figure in the field of operations management and operations strategy. In this interview he offers many insights into how this field has developed, both in business and in academia and highlights some of the challenges faced, particularly if research is to have real value in business.

This paper examines three key factors that help to explain the differences between high and low performing plants in process quality. The three factors are: first, the seniority of manufacturing personnel within the plants; second, the involvement of these senior managers in the business, rather than being confined to the role of a production/technology functional specialist; third, the contribution of a manufacturing strategy which includes quality as part of its content and which feeds into, and forms part of, the overall business plan within the plant. The paper argues that these three factors help to maintain the strategic importance of quality and, consequently, help to explain the subsequent quality performance within the manufacturing plant. The conclusions are that two distinct groups emerge ‐ one, Traditional, and the other, Enlightened ‐ which are different in terms of attitudes, commitment to, and capabilities in, quality.

'Can new qualities, scales and economies of production be achieved through the application of digital laser printed ceramic transfers to a commercial context?' The digital laser printed transfer system offers the potential of enhancing qualities, speeds and economies for commercial production, yet to date it has not been adopted by large-scale UK ceramic manufacturers. This paper will discuss the findings of the first stage of a 2-year research project that aims to explore the possibilities of applying laser printed transfer systems within a commercial context and larger scales of production. Digital prints are ubiquitous. Over the last 30 years digital technology has democratised our relationship with the printed image. The decoration of flat ceramic tiles has been revolutionised by the adoption of directly printed digital inkjet technology. But due to their complex topography, ceramic objects such as tableware, figurines and other ornament forms are still predominantly decorated using an indirect system known as ceramic transfer printing. The ceramic transfers are made using the multi-stage and resource-hungry process of screenprinting. Laser printing technology has been developed to produce ceramic transfers, but this is currently a marginal activity. The process remains limited to single print or very small batch production jobs, with the market model being a bureau-based service for commissioned work. The AHRC funded project 'Extending the Potential for the Digitally Printed Ceramic Surface' aims to address this issue by bringing together partners of the innovator (and patent holder) of the laser printed ceramic transfer technology, Digital Ceramic Systems and Royal Crown Derby, a major UK ceramic manufacturer. Liaison between the two and associated strategic creative development is being undertaken by an academic research team on the Ceramics and Glass programme at the Royal College of Art.

Purpose
This article aims to explore the evolution of industrial service uncertainties and the approaches for mitigating these uncertainties. The article also sheds light on how the interplay of potential uncertainties due to service operation challenges shapes the decisiveness of product-centric businesses.


Design/methodology/approach
To better understand how industrial firms mitigate uncertainties of industrial service provision by their supply chains, we adopted a qualitative multi-case logic methodology. Our approach is based on a research model of uncertainty avoidance and uncertainty reduction which we applied in an exploratory study with three major multi-national firms in the aerospace industry: BAE systems, Lockheed Martin and Rolls-Royce.


Findings
From the analysis, we found that to mitigate industrial service uncertainty, there is a need for aftermarket-oriented organisation, audit-oriented governance, relationship-oriented intelligence and lifecycle-oriented contracts. We also found that value uncertainty originating from unpredictability in client needs and project scope and structural uncertainty caused by volatility and variability of business structures are also important quandaries in decision making situations of firms towards their supply chains for industrial services.


Originality/value
The article makes two useful contributions. First it provides an assessment of the nature of uncertainty within operations for providing industrial services. Second, the paper identifies orientations for industrial service uncertainty mitigation. Whereas product-centric businesses firms tend to vary in their states for uncertainty avoidance and reduction, our work suggest similar orientations for uncertainty mitigation across these firms.