Fabrication and manufacturing

When Ben Franklin wrote Poor Richard’s Almanac and the words, “A little neglect may breed great mischief,” he did not have price fixing in mind. To the 47 executives in companies in the folding-box industry convicted of price fixing, however, the words seem tailored to fit. In those companies convicted under antitrust laws in 1976, […]

High-definition televisions (HDTVs) should, by now, be a huge success. Philips, Sony, and Thompson invested billions of dollars to develop TV sets with...

One firm in India wanted to understand what leads workers to make unsafe choices, and why unsafe conditions go unreported.

Powerful brands have distinct personalities: Duracell’s batteries last a long time. Volvos are safe in a crash. But even dominant brands can fade if they fall prey to multiple personality disorder. Consider General Motors. What’s the difference between a Chevrolet, a Pontiac, and a Buick? The company has recently woken up to the problem; last […]

For a leader, a public apology is always a high-risk move. Understanding what apologies can and cannot do will help you avoid both foolhardy stonewalling and unnecessary contrition.

Procter & Gamble’s radical strategy of open innovation now produces more than 35% of the company’s innovations and billions of dollars in revenue.

Richard Serra makes rolled-steel sculptures so massive that New York’s Museum of Modern Art designed a gallery to support their weight. He’s been close to the industry that creates his signature material for half a century: Decades before achieving critical and popular acclaim, he joined a U.S. Steel rivet gang to put himself through Yale. […]

What took thousands of lives and killed an industry was management’s failure to insist on its own responsibilities.

Many assume that China’s cost advantage in manufacturing comes from cheap labor. But in China’s burgeoning steel industry, our research suggests, massive government energy subsidies, not other factors, keep prices down. These subsidies have broad implications for how companies compete and collaborate with Chinese businesses. In 2005, Beijing designated steel as a pillar industry for […]

A Chinese appliance maker considers expanding production to Mexico.

Green initiatives can, by reducing costs, enhance a company’s bottom line. Actions that harm the environment can have the opposite effect. Now, thanks to a burgeoning market in greenhouse gas emission credits put into effect by the Kyoto Protocol, environmental considerations will increasingly affect not only companies’ income statements but also their balance sheets. A […]

A substantial body of experience and a set of tested standards have made “green” a realistic choice for most building projects. Here are ten practical design and construction rules that will help you conserve the Earth’s resources and your budget.

Three ways to minimize risk.

My job as CEO is not to make business decisions—it’s to push managers to be leaders.

Companies aggressively offer discounts, introductory coupons, and other incentives to lure new customers—and, often, those prospects oblige by making an initial purchase. But my research in the financial services, fast food, and automotive sales and service industries shows how these tactics can backfire. In one study, involving 300 new customers of a bank, 71% of […]

In 1965, a time when quantitative, computer-driven planning was very much in vogue, Royal Dutch Shell started experimenting with a different way of looking...

The German car company has redesigned its factory for—and with—older workers.

The industry depends on small suppliers, and they’re struggling.

Many innovations fail because consumers irrationally overvalue the old and companies irrationally overvalue the new.

With workers defining their own job standards, quality and productivity at the Fremont plant went from worst to best.