The first edition of this highly acclaimed publication received a Shingo Research and Professional Publication Prize in 2009. Explaining how to create and sustain a Lean business, it followed Cogent Power‘s first two Lean Roadmaps along their journey. Since then, much has changed. Several members of Cogent Power‘s senior management have moved on, s

This book proposes a new model, the Lean and Green Business Model (L&GBM), where the environmental aspect of sustainability is integrated with Lean thinking in order to create a way of thinking that contributes to and balances the three sustainability dimensions of people, profit, and planet. The model presented uses a kaizen approach that will

This publication is in collaboration with the University of Buckingham and is the result of a combined research and review process carried out by the three Editors who belongs to the University of Ferrara, Italy, the University of Buckingham, UK and Swansea University, UK*.*The book deepens the debate about the lean enterprise from both an academic and a professional management perspective. It thus provides the reader with a sound understanding of the modern lean enterprise and its...

This book examines agile approaches from a management perspective by focusing on matters of strategy, implementation, organization and people. It examines the turbulence of the marketplace and business environment in order to identify what role agile management has to play in coping with such change and uncertainty. Based on observations, personal experience and extensive research, it clearly identifies the fabric of the agile organization, helping managers to become agile leaders in an un...

One of the main aims of management accounting is to provide managers with accurate information in order to provide a good basis for decision-making. There is evidence that the information provided by management accounting systems (MAS) is distorted and the occurrence of biases in accounting information is widely accepted among users of MAS. At the same time, the intensity and the frequency of use of MAS increase, too. Consequently, the quality of the provided information is critical. The f...

Information Technology (IT) - the field that links computer and communications equipment and software - is transforming the way modern business is done. Examples of factors leading these changes are: rapidly decreasing costs of computer hardware, government de-regulation, accelerating global competitiveness, an increasing management awareness, and the knowledge of how to employ Information Technology successfully. These have all led to the increase of IT's effects on existing markets, and,...

A close look at the main developments in IT, business processes and offshore outsourcing. This book studies these topics in both theory and practice, exploring the rising prominence of outsourcing with a multi-dimensional, contextual perspective.

Disintegrated or distributed innovation, collaborative innovation, collective invention, collegial innovation, free innovation, open knowledge disclosure, free knowledge disclosure: are these all the same thing? This shows us there is some confusion regarding open innovation, or at least there is a need to cast a wider net around what open innovation is all about. The prevailing thought is that open innovation allows organizations to simultaneously expand their breadth of ideas, opportunit...

This textbook approaches optimization from a multi-aspect, multi-criteria perspective. By using a Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approach, it avoids the limits and oversimplifications that can come with optimization models with one criterion. The book is presented in a concise form, addressing how to solve decision problems in sequences of intelligence, modelling, choice and review phases, often iterated, to identify the most preferred decision variant. The approach taken is huma...

Knowledge Management and Organizational Memories presents models, methods, and techniques for building, managing and using corporate memories. These models incorporate knowledge bases, ontologies, documents, FAQs, workflow systems, case-based reasoning systems, multi-agent systems, and CSCW. The book is divided into five parts: methods; knowledge-based approaches; ontologies and documents; case-based reasoning approaches; and distributed and collaborative approaches.

This book presents selected papers on Business Management and Technology, focusing on recent research in Business, Optimization, Technology, and Global Issues. Organized in four broad tracks, papers examine Management Challenges in Today’s Industry, especially concerning changes in customer demands; Optimization Challenges in Today’s Business, looking at efficiency and effectiveness in providing goods and services at affordable prices; Innovation in Hospitality and Tourism; and Technologic...

Channel coordination is a core subject of supply chain management. Over the past decade, much research effort has been devoted to exploring the detailed mechanisms for achieving supply chain coordination under uncertainty, generating many fruitful analytical and empirical results. Despite the abundance of research results, there is an absence of a comprehensive reference source that provides state-of-the-art findings on both theoretical and applied research on the subject. In addition, wit...