Valuable Disconnects in Organizational Learning Systems: Integrating Bold Visions and Harsh Realities offers a comprehensive framework for understanding how knowledge, skills and capabilities are developed in organizations--and how this process offers deep insights into the predictable barriers to success. Written in a clear, accessible style, it highlights the crucial part "disconnects" play in the learning cycle--a role that it is essential to understand in today's increasingly knowledge-driven work systems.
The conceptual framework of the text is grounded in scholarly research...

Knowledge-Driven Work is a pioneering study of the cross-cultural iffusion of ideas about the organization of work. These ideas, linked with the knowledge of the workforce, are rapidly becoming the primary source of competitive advantage in the world economy.
The book provides an in-depth look at eight Japanese-affiliated manufacturing facilities operating in the United States, combined with examinations of their sister facilities in Japan. The authors offer their insights into the complex process by which elements of work systems in one country interact with those in another....

Lean Production transformed the way that companies think about production and manufacturing. This book provides a new challenge. It arises from the work of the Lean Aerospace Initiative at MIT and provides a new agenda and bold vision for the aerospace industry to take it out of crisis. It also redefines and develops the concept of Lean as a framework for enterprise transformation and this will be relevant and critical for all industries and enterprises.

What if anyone could make (almost) anything? That's the promise, and peril, of the third digital revolution.

Two digital revolutions-in computing and communication- have radically transformed our economy and lives. A third digital revolution is upon us, in fabrication. Beyond the hype around 3D printers, digital fabrication technologies are exponentially accelerating in capability-community fab labs will be followed by digital personal fabrication and, ultimately, universal replicators straight out of Star Trek. While advances in digital fabrication promise...