New and Improved! Managing Resources for Old and New Product Generations
Improving the cost, quality or timeliness of a firm’s products and processes requires a variety of scarce firm-specific resources. Though firms need to engage in these practices to remain competitive there is also a cost involved. This leads to a key question: When should a firm switch all its learning resources from an older to a newer product generation? Professors Demeester and Qi … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Lieven L. Demeester, Mei Qi | Source: “INSEAD Knowledge” | Subject: Operations
Borrowing from Nature: Manufacturing Lessons from the Biological Cell
Where should we look for new innovations in manufacturing? Perhaps nature has some answers, say Professors Demeester, Loch and Van Wassenhove, who see in the biological cell a lean, adaptive system that allows the kind of performance today’s manufacturing facilities could only dream of achieving.
Content: Article | Authors: Christoph Loch, Lieven L. Demeester, Luk N. Van Wassenhove | Source: “INSEAD Knowledge” | Subjects: Innovation, Operations