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Can Lean Manufacturing Put an End to Sweatshops?

Harvard Business Review

It involves replacing traditional mass manufacturing with “lean manufacturing” principles. Over the last thirty years, the lean approach — developed by Japanese automakers — has permeated the manufacturing sector in developed countries, but is much less commonly used in the developing world.

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The Dirty Little Secret About Digitally Transforming Operations

Harvard Business Review

The newest robots, 3-D printing systems, and data-mining hardware and services were all there along with a host of people hyping Industry 4.0, the Internet of Things (IoT), Digital Manufacturing, and big data and advanced analytics. Operations in a Connected World. ” Insight Center. Sponsored by Accenture.

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How Chief Data Officers Can Get Their Companies to Collect Clean Data

Harvard Business Review

Cleaning up data downstream is expensive and not scalable, because data is a byproduct of business processes and operations like marketing, sales, plant operations, and so on. This requires close collaboration with the operating units and IT. High-quality data can reduce the cost and risk of IT projects.

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Breaking the Death Grip of Legacy Technologies

Harvard Business Review

Managers constantly try to fit new market needs to existing processes and routines. The Future of Operations. automakers took decades to adopt lean production methods despite the obvious benefits from increased productivity and lower work-in-process inventory. Sometimes they are a fit, but often they are not. Insight Center.

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Three Things Your Company Can Learn from a Bottle of Water

Harvard Business Review

That's more than triple the rate of the market. As a manufacturing company grows, it benefits from economies of scale and can focus teams of people on extracting the maximum productivity from its plant operations. IKEA originally designed its "Bang" mug to cost just 50 cents. But service companies are different.

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