A Systems Thinking Perspective on a Manufacturing Base Restoration Initiative, June 14, 2002 (revised 7/23/02) 869K

Table of Contents:

• How to improve:
  The Exponential Improvement Technique for Manufacturing and Engineering
• Interactions between Manufacturing and Engineering:
  Combined Exponential Improvement & The Quality Improvement Paradox
• Why innovation alone isn't enough: Profiting from Technological Innovation
• Barriers to improvement: Challenges That Must Be Met and Overcome
• The Economic Environment and National Economic Policy

A Systems Thinking Perspective on A Manufacturing Base Restoration Initiative - Part II, Bob Powell, Continuous Improvement Associates, 12/01/02 (Revised 6/22/03) (272K)

Table of Contents

• Issue: Focus on high value-added products
• Issue: Manufacturing base restoration initiative focus? 
• On "feasible initiatives" vs. "reversing national trends."
• Issue: Cutting taxes to meet global competition
• Issue: Government incentives for R&D and employing Americans
• Issue: Attracting high wage jobs
• Issue: Artificially high wages due to unionization
• Excerpt A: On downsizing reengineering and restructuring from  Competing for the Future by Hamel & Prahalad
• Excerpt B. On management vs. high wages being the source of the competitiveness challenge from Competing for the Future by Hamel & Prahalad
• Excerpt C: from The Future of Capitalism by Lester Thurow (1996)
• Excerpt D: from "The Long Wave Decline and the Politics of Depression" by John Sterman presentation to the Bank Credit Analyst Conference, 1992. The origin of the "long wave" from a system dynamics perspective is described in the paper by John Sterman of MIT on the Long Wave Decline and the Politics of Depression (pdf 21.1Mb).
• Article: Split in Ranks of Business and G.O.P. on Tax Cuts, 11/29/02
• Article: Manufacturing Contracts for Third Month, 12/2/02
• Article: Special Visa's Use for Tech Workers Is Challenged, 5/30/03