Operations and supply chain management

The CEO wants to increase collaboration and cut costs with an open-plan work space, but the knowledge workers say they need their walls, their doors, and their privacy.

Speed is not the only - or even the most important - factor.

Many companies approach product development as if it were manufacturing, trying to control costs and improve quality by applying zero-defect, efficiency-focused...

That is, if businesses embrace a circular economy.

Your organization needs to change too.

Examining groups like ISIS and al Qaeda through an organizational lens.

The Toyota story has been intensively researched and painstakingly documented, yet what really happens inside the company remains a mystery. Here’s new insight into the unspoken rules that give Toyota its competitive edge.

Nowhere in a company is the need for coordination more acute than between the people who are responsible for product design and those responsible for manufacturing. As Daniel E. Whitney argued in these pages recently (“Manufacturing by Design,” July–August 1988), most companies have operated for years in an environment where design and manufacturing communicate infrequently, […]

Many CEOs don't seem to care about organic growth. They either give up on it, in the belief that their companies will inevitably become low growth, or...

Technology offers new ways of sharing information and assets, meaning managers will have to rethink their relationships with suppliers and competitors.

As a boy, Bush watched "Emergency!" on television and was captivated by the romance and seeming magic of saving lives. As an adult, he found the reality...

Stores have evolved, so the jobs should too.

Like manufacturers, service organizations find operational economies of scale in investments in fixed facilities, inventories, and transportation. It’s generally advantageous to centralize these operations, as in the following cases. Some repair facilities cut costs by limiting the number of spare parts and field service locations, or at least by limiting the stocking locations for low-demand […]

A Q&A with the company’s VP of Engineering.

And companies are suffering.

It's more complicated than simply implementing new technologies.

It will become the problem and the solution.

Social ventures earn their stripes the same way private enterprises do.

Prepare your employees for automation and machine learning.

The economic distress of America's inner cities may be the most pressing issue facing the nation. The lack of businesses and jobs in disadvantaged urban...