Kategoria BISAC: Business & Economics >> Production & Operations Management

Engineers and scientists often need to sell an innovative idea for a new product or a new product improvement to top management. Sometimes their tendency is to focus on the "WOW " of the new technology at the expense of making a convincing business case. When the new technology represents a large cost reduction, there will be much less of a problem in convincing management to approve the project if the investment level is acceptable. The major rub comes when the new feature or technology is an improvement in customer value that also generates an increase in cost. This makes the sell...

Product Realization: A Comprehensive Approach is based on selected papers presented at the International Conference on Comprehensive Product Realization 2007 (ICCPR2007). The extended papers will provide the opportunity for scholars from all around the world to discuss their academic programs, identify research opportunities, and initiate joint research programs in the area of comprehensive product realization. Engineering design has evolved from an isolated semi-empirical activity to a highly interconnected, multidisciplinary product realization collaborative process.

The scope of...

This book focuses on management of complex system structures in product design. It offers a methodology for analysis, control and optimization of complex structures. It also addresses applicability of domain-spanning problems.

This is a practical guide to solutions for forecasting demand for services and products in international markets - and much more than just a listing of dry theoretical methods. Leading experts present studies on improving methods for forecasting numbers of incoming patent filings at the European Patent Office. These are reviewed by practitioners of the existing methods, revealing that it may not always be wise to trust established regression approaches.

Most developed economics show the tendency of an increasing importance of modern services such as tourism, logistical services, finance, and others. In many cases, complex optimization problems can be found in this context, and the successful operation of modern services often depends on the ability to solve the obtained optimization models. Metaheuristics on the other hand present an interesting problem-resolution paradigm that has attracted considerable interest in past years. The book combines a set of selected and peer-reviewed articles, presenting novel results of metaheuristics for...

Seldom has any business been in such turmoil as the Communication Service Providers (CSP) business is today. Telecom operators providing communication services constructed the infrastructure of the global information society with their trillion investments on various telecommunication technologies from broadband to mobile. Their investments on software turned their technology-specific in-house procedures into modern layered OSS/BSS.

This book analyzes the status and the future evolution of OSS/BSS software industry from multiple viewpoints including technology diffusion, vertical...

In today's dynamic business environment, IT departments are under permanent pressure to meet two divergent requirements: to reduce costs and to support business agility with higher flexibility and responsiveness of the IT infrastructure. Grid and Cloud Computing enable a new approach towards IT. They enable increased scalability and more efficient use of IT based on virtualization of heterogeneous and distributed IT resources. This book provides a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of Grids and Clouds and of how companies can benefit from them. A wide array of topics is covered,...

Reverse logistics concerns the integration of used and obsolete products back into the supply chain as valuable resources. Economic, marketing, and legislative drivers increasingly are leading companies to take back and recover their products after use. The arising product flows pose novel challenges for supply chain management.

This book addresses decision making in reverse logistics. It covers a wide range of aspects, related to distribution, production and inventory management, and supply chain management. For each topic, it highlights key managerial issues in real-life examples...