Fabrication and manufacturing

Competing in overcrowded industries is no way to sustain high performance. The real opportunity is to create blue oceans of uncontested market space.

Everyone agrees that managing change is tough, but few can agree on how to do it. Most experts are obsessed with "soft" issues, such as culture and motivation,...

Before they have received even a day of training, the best salespeople already have two seemingly incompatible qualities in abundance: empathy with customers and a need to overcome their hesitation to buy.

In many companies, sales forces and marketers feud like Capulets and Montagues—with disastrous results. Here’s how to get them to lay down their swords.

Your organization can become more decisive—and can implement strategy more quickly—if you know where the bottlenecks are and who’s empowered to break through them.

In 1965, a time when quantitative, computer-driven planning was very much in vogue, Royal Dutch Shell started experimenting with a different way of looking...

Powerful brands have distinct personalities: Duracell’s batteries last a long time. Volvos are safe in a crash. But even dominant brands can fade if they fall prey to multiple personality disorder. Consider General Motors. What’s the difference between a Chevrolet, a Pontiac, and a Buick? The company has recently woken up to the problem; last […]

Examples from Maersk, IBM, and TRIP.

Many assume that China’s cost advantage in manufacturing comes from cheap labor. But in China’s burgeoning steel industry, our research suggests, massive government energy subsidies, not other factors, keep prices down. These subsidies have broad implications for how companies compete and collaborate with Chinese businesses. In 2005, Beijing designated steel as a pillar industry for […]

It won’t replace standard manufacturing anytime soon.

The combination of the gigantic American trade deficit and the price of oil at more than $125 per barrel (at press time) has created an attendant pool...

With workers defining their own job standards, quality and productivity at the Fremont plant went from worst to best.

There are opportunities and challenges.

Green initiatives can, by reducing costs, enhance a company’s bottom line. Actions that harm the environment can have the opposite effect. Now, thanks to a burgeoning market in greenhouse gas emission credits put into effect by the Kyoto Protocol, environmental considerations will increasingly affect not only companies’ income statements but also their balance sheets. A […]

The giants of American industry are a breed apart. But the stories of path-making, rule-breaking entrepreneurs like Andrew Carnegie, Thomas J. Watson, and Sam Walton offer lessons that can be understood—and in some cases even practiced—by leaders everywhere.

If you’re not careful, the dream of information integration can turn into a nightmare.

A substantial body of experience and a set of tested standards have made “green” a realistic choice for most building projects. Here are ten practical design and construction rules that will help you conserve the Earth’s resources and your budget.

Richard Serra makes rolled-steel sculptures so massive that New York’s Museum of Modern Art designed a gallery to support their weight. He’s been close to the industry that creates his signature material for half a century: Decades before achieving critical and popular acclaim, he joined a U.S. Steel rivet gang to put himself through Yale. […]

Companies aggressively offer discounts, introductory coupons, and other incentives to lure new customers—and, often, those prospects oblige by making an initial purchase. But my research in the financial services, fast food, and automotive sales and service industries shows how these tactics can backfire. In one study, involving 300 new customers of a bank, 71% of […]

Decades of outsourcing manufacturing has left U.S. industry without the means to invent the next generation of high-tech products that are key to rebuilding its economy.