Gauging the changing nature of change

摘要

Given a constant interplay between ruling management concepts - such as lean production or globalization - and an information technology (IT) infrastructure integral to the business process, manufacturing systems are always changing. This is a good thing, as evidenced by productivity statistics, which reveal the very real gains in productivity growth experienced in the manufacturing industries the last 15 years, and especially since 1995, and resulting largely from the convergence of automation and information technology.