Management leadership and productivity improvement programs

The intent of this empirical research is to identify the critical factors that are potentially fatal to productivity improvement programs and to analyze these factors relative to management leadership concepts. From this analysis we determine that these “fatal” factors can be prevented by the pre-existence of a leadership-based program that requires participative involvement of all members of an organization through good performance measurement and a sound reward system.     

Management systems for field service productivity improvement

The effectiveness of field services provided for the maintenance of crucial equipment is shown to have a significant impact on market share. Identification of the service level required by customers is essential. Programmes are described for the design of optimal services and for the optimisation of service levels by way of an investment evaluation procedure.     

Pathways to solutions

Problems may be viewed from many different angles and in many different ways. The order in which facts are collected, the attitudes of the people involved in the problem, the climate in which the problem finds itself to be, all play their parts in determining what the problem is perceived to be and how it is tackled. This paper reports on the several ways in which an apparently simple problem was approached and recognises that the process of solution which is adopted can dictate the eventual outcome and determine what the recommendations will be.     

Pathways to management numeracy

Development of understanding of mathematical concepts and facility with quantitative techniques as aids to decision-making are important aims for post-experience management courses. Unfortunately, many British managers have a low level of numeracy and find this area difficult. From practical experience with such courses, it is argued that some of the special difficulties and the widely varying needs of middleaged managers might be met by introducing a self-scheduling learning scheme. The features of this approach to teaching are discussed against a background of the widespread interest in individualized learning in other areas of education. A proposed system for teaching quantitative techniques is described to illustrate this approach and raise a number of design issues.     

Manufacturing productivity

The general theory of engineering systems suggests that to produce desired order (to make a machine that works, to reduce the entropy, or even to improve productivity) the agent needs access to sources of (i) information, or useful messages; (ii) energy, or motivation; (iii) resources, including skills. A manufacturing economy, being an engineering system, obeys the same rules, so that an objective examination of 11 of them may be instructive. Since Belgium has no native energy and very few native resources, her post-1968 success in raising her productivity suggests significant improvement in her information systems. The author suggests what this improvement may have been.     

Relative Contributions of Four Exposure Pathways to Influenza Infection Risk

The relative contribution of four influenza virus exposure pathways—(1) virus-contaminated hand contact with facial membranes, (2) inhalation of respirable cough particles, (3) inhalation of inspirable cough particles, and (4) spray of cough droplets onto facial membranes—must be quantified to determine the potential efficacy of nonpharmaceutical interventions of transmission. We used a mathematical model to estimate the relative contributions of the four pathways to infection risk in the context of a person attending a bed-ridden family member ill with influenza. Considering the uncertainties in the sparse human subject influenza dose-response data, we assumed alternative ratios of 3,200:1 and 1:1 for the infectivity of inhaled respirable virus to intranasally instilled virus. For the 3,200:1 ratio, pathways (1), (2), and (4) contribute substantially to influenza risk: at a virus saliva concentration of 10⁶ mL⁻¹, pathways (1), (2), (3), and (4) contribute, respectively, 31%, 17%, 0.52%, and 52% of the infection risk. With increasing virus concentrations, pathway (2) increases in importance, while pathway (4) decreases in importance. In contrast, for the 1:1 infectivity ratio, pathway (1) is the most important overall: at a virus saliva concentration of 10⁶ mL⁻¹, pathways (1), (2), (3), and (4) contribute, respectively, 93%, 0.037%, 3.3%, and 3.7% of the infection risk. With increasing virus concentrations, pathway (3) increases in importance, while pathway (4) decreases in importance. Given the sparse knowledge concerning influenza dose and infectivity via different exposure pathways, nonpharmaceutical interventions for influenza should simultaneously address potential exposure via hand contact to the face, inhalation, and droplet spray.     

How Japanese partners help US manufacturers to raise productivity

Cross-border alliances are useful strategies for technological innovation and as a basis for the adaptation of foreign technologies. This study provides evidence that through strategic alliances US automotive firms are effectively adopting manufacturing technologies from Japan, and are adapting them to the US industrial context.

The results show that US firms without foreign affiliations use fewer modern manufacturing technologies than US firms with Japanese strategic alliance partners. Furthermore, US firms with Japanese strategic alliance partners believe that manufacturing cycle times for product introduction are more efficient that US firms without foreign affiliations.     

Getting the seal of approval: Pathways to subsidiary initiative acceptance

Multinational corporations (MNCs) are proactive, entrepreneurial, and decentralized organizations. They seek to incorporate and leverage knowledge from their foreign subsidiaries. Initiatives in which subsidiaries pursue new business opportunities are one way that subsidiaries contribute to MNCs' knowledge stocks, but prior research suggests that few subsidiary initiatives secure headquarters approval. We argue that the extent to which initiatives are accepted by the headquarters of an MNC depends on a range of relational and contextual conditions that configure in complex ways. Using a neoconfigurational approach, we identify five equifinal configurations associated with the acceptance of subsidiary initiatives. We advance theory of subsidiary management by uncovering how subsidiary activities gain traction within the MNC.     

From quality assurance to continuous quality improvement

To change from punitive and legalistic QA to positive and productive CQI, both attitudes and methods must change. This is a difficult challenge, but potential rewards for both the organization and its individual members suggest that the effort is worthwhile and deserves high priority. Members of the executive/management team will likely turn to physician executives for guidance on how to proceed.     

Planning for productivity

In the 1980s the subject of productivity will receive increasing attention as the old macro economic policies are replaced by micro economic policies. Everyone in various ways will discover the changes which will be involved in learning the real economic facts of life. The need to improve productivity and business performance is urgent and yet it is an area which is being neglected by management.     

Profit-oriented productivity change

This study develops an applicable profit-oriented productivity indicator when producers pursue profit maximization and can recognize input and output prices. We define the indicator, inspired by the Luenberger indicator and the Nerlovian efficiency measurement, in terms of both quantity distance functions and profit. Hence, the study׳s first stage decomposes the profit-oriented productivity change into two terms: profit efficiency change and profit technology change. Second, we decompose profit efficiency change into the changes in technical efficiency and allocative efficiency. Finally, profit technology change is separated into two components for capturing the shifts of technology and relative output/input prices. These decompositions provide a more complete picture of the sources of productivity change. We illustrate them with a sample of Taiwanese banks and compute the results using the models of directional distance functions.     

Case study: using control charts to track physician productivity

Learn how control charts are being used to gauge physician productivity in a Shriners hospital in Kentucky. The charts provide a fair and accurate analysis that doctors appreciate.     

Moving from quality assurance to continuous quality improvement

Though numerous proponents of the change from quality assurance (QA) to continuous quality improvement (CQI) have emphasized the drawbacks of the former and the advantages of the latter, there has been relatively little systematic consideration and comparison of the costs and benefits of each. A proper comparison is probably not possible, because the data seem to be lacking. Instead, much of the discourse has been based upon anecdotes, analogies from other industries, and unsupported assertions. This article grows out of a concern that, in making the switch from QA to CQI, we will discard or inadvertently lose much of value in QA and may not achieve many of the things that proponents expect CQI will accomplish. QA has served the health care field well. Its achievements ought to be preserved and built upon, not discarded.     

Planning for increased productivity

The planning process in manufacturing industry is increasingly affected by the assessments which are made of human productivity, and a need to take account of the interplay between human needs and the demands of capital intensive and technologically controlled manufacturing environments. This paper examines a number of these aspects, and in particular those concerning the present and past relationship between Technology and Manufacturing. The study portrays the differing emphasis given by industries and countries to the allocation of the wealth produced by manufacturing, and in particular examines the possible problems which could be created by the increasing proportion of total value added being allocated to wages and salaries. The paper examines the possible ways of countering this trend, which could of course lead to inadequate resources being allocated to investment to sustain future growth. The article concludes by commenting on recent United Kingdom experience and in particular the use of incentive payment schemes based upon added value.     

On measures of productivity

The welfare of an individual enterprise, as well as that of the national economy, very much depends on productivity. But it appears that methods for determining measures of productivity are lamentably unsophisticated and lead to many ambiguities and inconsistencies. It is generally suggested that productivity represents some ratio of output to input, but existing measures of inputs and outputs are unsatisfactory, largely because they gloss over the difficulties of reducing multi-inputs and multi-outputs to single denominators. This paper examines certain approaches that may be developed to handle some of the measurement problems involved in this area.     

Increasing trust improves productivity

The author describes the Management by Trust system and its application in two plants in India: the practical difficulties encountered and the rewards in terms of improved interpersonal relationships and increased levels of trust, which are reflected in more effective performance and a higher level of productivity.     

Learning to learn and productivity growth: Evidence from a new car-assembly plant

This paper models learning by experience beyond the experience curve, including the possibility of “learning to learn”: the pace of learning increases over time by building on what has already been learned. We compare the extended deterministic learning model with Jovanovic and Nyarkos' [26] stochastic learning. The theoretical models are tested with data on the total factor productivity of a car-assembly plant in its first months of operation. We find that the deterministic “mixed learning model”, where the speed of learning is equal to a constant plus a learning to learn effect, is the one that best fits the empirical data. The mixed learning model results in a time pattern of total factor productivity growth, first increasing and later decreasing, different from the always decreasing rate of growth of the learning curve, opening new perspectives on the study of learning by experience.     

Potential productivity: Concepts and application

This paper is concerned with the meaning and measurement of potential productivity. Potential productivity is the difference between the actual and most efficient (optimal) productivity level. A number of concepts of potential productivity are outlined and their managerial implications discussed. Measures based on operating and lost time, peak output levels, estimating a capacity production function and work study (percentage utilisation of labour) are compared for the envelope-making division of a UK manufacturing company.