Dynamic Manufacturing (Hardcover)

by Robert H. Hayes (Author) "The storm that flickered on the horizon for American industry during the 1970s came ashore with a rush in the 1980s..." (more)
Key Phrases: capital budgeting paradigm, wire creep, artisan mode, United States, World War, Super Food Processor (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
Wilbur H. Gantz President, Baxter Healthcare Corporation Must reading for all executives in manufacturing businesses. It clearly places responsibility for success or failure on management. Best of all, it shows how to make major improvements competitively and establish a world-class manufacturing. -- Review

Product Description

It is management, and particularly managers' willingness to learn and change -- not unfair competition or unsupportive economic policies -- that is at the heart of America's manufacturing crisis, contend Robert Hayes, Steven Wheelwright, and Kim Clark. These world-renowned authorities on manufacturing and technology base their conclusion on studies of hundreds of American and foreign firms.

Writing for general managers in this long-awaited successor to their award-winning Restoring Our Competitive Edge, the authors go beyond the structural decisions -- the "bricks and mortar" of facilities and equipment -- to the infrastructure of a manufacturing company: the management policies, systems, and practices that must be at the core of a world-class organization. Most importantly, they address the difficulty of creating that infrastructure, emphasizing the management leadership and vision that are required.

This thorough and comprehensive volume points out the weaknesses of traditional management practices, which are built into authoritarian, hierarchical organizations. The authors show dramatically how many companies today are breaking out of this "command and control" mentality and creating a whole new set of relationships involving workers and managers, engineering, marketing and manufacturing, and suppliers and customers, which is giving them a competitive advantage in the international marketplace.

Comparing the companies that are winning with those that are losing market position, Hayes, Wheelwright, and Clark conclude that the key differences are that the winners focus on creating value for customers, continual improvement, quick adaptability to change, and extracting the full potential of their human resources. They constantly strive to be better, placing great emphasis on experimentation, integration, training, and the building of critical organizational capabilities. They are, in short, "learning" organizations.

Dynamic Manufacturing explores in depth such key infrastructure issues as capital budgeting, performance measurement, organizational structure, and human resource management, demonstrating how they interact to foster productivity growth, new product development, and competitive advantage. The book shows today's managers how to implement the changes that must be made if they want to create a truly superior manufacturing company. Taking concerned, committed managers step-by-step on the path toward better products, lower costs, and increased profits, this seminal work provides a road map for manufacturing firms seeking to build a competitive advantage through manufacturing excellence.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 4th Printing edition (September 6, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0029142113
• ISBN-13: 978-0029142110
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,128,297 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book review on "Dynamic Manufacturing", April 24, 2001

By	"xianming_shi" (MT, USA) - See all my reviews

The book is extremely refreshing and useful in terms of its different perspective from the conventional manufacturing management assumptions and theories, which still influence the America's management practices today. The book explores key manufacturing infrastructure issues such as capital budgeting, organization structure and performance measurement and demonstrates how these can affect, positively or negatively, the performance of the manufacturing companies in pursuing it sustainable competitive advantage over its competitors.

The book is well structured and the arguments are very consistent with one another. In analyzing different elements leading to a superior manufacturing organization,the importance of learning and adaptation to change are emphasized, while the difficulties of creating the new infrastructure that a company may encounter and the key role that management can play are also emphasized.

The points the authors propose are impressive using reliable case studies. For example, the case histories of the three presentative investment decisions that illustrate the problems with the modern capital budgeting paradigm are instrumental for better understanding. The calculations of total factor poductivity (TFP) for two contrasting products illustrate the TFP performance easurement technique convincingly. The tables and figures in each chapter, provided as further illustrations, also aid in generating neat and explicit explanations.

The author's treatment is complete since the book provides a great deal of information and shows today's managers why it is necessary and how to implement the fundamental changes if they want to create a world-class organization that builds a competitive advantage through manufacturing excellence. It is very comprehensive in addressing issues associated with creating and managing a dynamic, learning manufacturing organization at the corporation level and at the factory level. However, not all the technical details are provided in the sense that the book is more a "know-why" than "know-how" guidance.

The book is directed at managers throughout a manufacturing company, not just the management of the manufacturing function. In my opinion, capital investors, top management, manufacturing managers, project managers, industrial engineers, design engineers, and any other ambitious engineers in manufacturing companies should read this book carefully and keep in mind some insights and principles that the authors address in the book. As advocated by the authors, "learning is the bottom line".

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well ahead of its time, May 14, 2008

By	Bas Vodde (Singapore) - See all my reviews

Dynamic Manufacturing is one of the earlier Clark/Wheelwright books on manufacturing and product development (the title is not suggesting it also covers product development, but it does). In my opinion, the book was way ahead of it's time and still, 20 years after it's publication, up-to-date and relevant and could have been written today!

The book consists of a couple of different parts, although they are not marked like that in the book itself (wonder why...):

- History (chapter 1)
- Metrics and organizational (chapter 2-5)
- Manufacturing improvements (chapter 6-9)
- Product Development (chapter 10-11)
- Next steps (chapter 12)

The history part alone is worth the book. It goes over the history of manufacturing in the US and in the world and shows that in 1988 the US manufacturing was in serious trouble, but that these troubles are similar to what the UK manufacturing went through in the beginning of the century. It has some pretty convincing data that something needed to be done. It would be nice to get an update related to this chapter alone.

The second part talks about investment planning and GAAP accounting practices and how they traditionally lead to the wrong investments and that being one of the key reasons for the lagging of the manufacturing industry. The next chapter talks about organizing manufacturing, problems and different models of solving that. The last chapter talks about measuring the manufacturing productivity and provides one productivity metric for doing so.

The thirds part describes the more concrete improvement to be done in the manufacturing. This part describes what is now known as lean manufacturing. In that sense, the book was ahead of its time since at the time the book was written, lean was still fairly unknown and new. It does great on summarizing some of the lean techniques and most importantly, ends with a chapter on people and continuous improvements.

The product development part is what later turned in their product development book "Revolutionizing product development". It introduces concepts like the "product funnel" and talks a lot about concurrent engineering. At the time the book was written, these concepts were very new and modern and this was one of the earlier books related to them, as far as I know.

As any book promoting new ideas, the last part talks about how to make the change happen. How to make the switch in mindset and where to start.

I thoroughly enjoyed Dynamic Manufacturing. Even though 20 years old, it still is relevant today. It was well written. Recommended to read, even in 2008.

5.0 out of 5 stars Still the Classic, June 16, 2008

By	C. Lafond "Home Improver" (NH United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This was and is one the best books ever written. While I was lost on the last couple chapters - the rest was so formulative. One has to remeber when this book was written - Fast product development and feature releases were 2-5 years. These guys revolutionized the working world during the Peters era. Where Tom Peter's reported and motivated - these guys showed you how to do it. I used this as my roadmap at the old Western Electric from 1989-1999. This is the genesis to the 5th discipline and almost all books today on concurrent engineering and Rapid Prototype Development (whether they admit it or not). A timeless classic that should be in every great library.