Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Business Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 10 of 10

Full-Text Articles in Business

The Manufacturing Contribution To Innovation, Arnoud De Meyer Aug 2014

The Manufacturing Contribution To Innovation, Arnoud De Meyer

Arnoud DE MEYER

The description of the contribution of manufacturing to the innovation process is often limited to the task of providing the necessary information to enable the development function to create a design which is easy to manufacture, and to be instrumental in the fast ramp-up of the production process. Though these are important tasks, it is argued in this paper that there is a third aspect of manufacturing’s contribution to innovation, namely the creation of a manufacturing system which is favorable to product innovation. This goes far beyond the design of an appropriate production process, but requires the creation of a …


How To Arrive At Computer Integrated Manufacturing: A 3-Year Survey, Arnoud De Meyer Aug 2014

How To Arrive At Computer Integrated Manufacturing: A 3-Year Survey, Arnoud De Meyer

Arnoud DE MEYER

The large majority of modern production companies have at their disposal a multitude of computer systems. The immediate challenge for these companies consists of integrating these computer systems and databases. How will one arrive at this integration? On the basis of a questionnaire administered in 1985, 1986 and 1987 among a group of large European manufacturers, one comes to the conclusion that this integration is one of the immediate priorities for this group of companies. They do not intend to implement turnkey systems. but instead will integrate the different databases and computer systems gradually. One can see emerging islands of …


A Comparison Of The Financial Characteristics Of U.S. And German Manufacturing Firms, Daniel Folkinshteyn, Ozge Uygur, Gulser Meric May 2014

A Comparison Of The Financial Characteristics Of U.S. And German Manufacturing Firms, Daniel Folkinshteyn, Ozge Uygur, Gulser Meric

Rohrer College of Business Faculty Scholarship

The U.S. and Germany rank #1 and #3, respectively, in the world, in terms of the total amount of international trade. U.S. and German firms compete with one another for a larger market share in other countries and in each other’s local markets. And yet, there are no published studies that compare the financial management practices of U.S. and German firms. In this paper, we make a contribution to the finance literature on this subject by comparing the financial characteristics of U.S. and German manufacturing firms. Our findings provide valuable insights for corporate financial managers and for investors who invest …


Corporation With Eight Strategic Business Units, Daniel R. Sterkenburg Apr 2014

Corporation With Eight Strategic Business Units, Daniel R. Sterkenburg

Business Administration Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Trade Liberalisation And Manufacturing Wage Premiums: Evidence From Thailand, Kankesu Jayanthakumaran, Piyapong Sangkaew, Martin O'Brien Feb 2014

Trade Liberalisation And Manufacturing Wage Premiums: Evidence From Thailand, Kankesu Jayanthakumaran, Piyapong Sangkaew, Martin O'Brien

Martin O'Brien

This paper investigates trade related industrial wage premiums. The procedure involves (1) estimating industrial wage premiums and (2) linking those estimated wage premiums to trade related variables. Results reveal that (1) in addition to workers' characteristics, industry characteristics where workers are employed were important in determining the wages for workers, (2) falling output tariffs resulted in increased wage premiums, and (3) an increase in intermediate imports exerted a strong positive influence on wage premiums. Linked employer and employee micro data may provide further insights which are currently not available.


Factors Affecting The Technical Inefficiency Of Thai Manufacturing And Exporting Small And Medium Sized Enterprises: A Stochastic Frontier Analysis (Sfa), Yot Amornkitvikai, Charles Harvie, Teerawat Charoenrat Feb 2014

Factors Affecting The Technical Inefficiency Of Thai Manufacturing And Exporting Small And Medium Sized Enterprises: A Stochastic Frontier Analysis (Sfa), Yot Amornkitvikai, Charles Harvie, Teerawat Charoenrat

Charles Harvie

This study employs a stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and technical inefficiency effects model to predict the technical efficiency of 3,168 Thai manufacturing and exporting SMEs, analyze their returns to scale and key factors impacting on their technical efficiency. Analysis of cross-sectional data from a 2007 census of Thai manufacturing SMEs indicates that their average technical efficiency is approximately 69.72 percent, signifying a moderate level of technical inefficiency which is reducing potential output. With respect to each group of manufacturing and exporting SMEs, SMEs exporting to East Asia have a level of technical efficiency of 0.7081, followed by SMEs exporting to …


Cash Flow Management And Manufacturing Firm Financial Performance: A Longitudinal Perspective, James R. Kroes, Andrew S. Manikas Feb 2014

Cash Flow Management And Manufacturing Firm Financial Performance: A Longitudinal Perspective, James R. Kroes, Andrew S. Manikas

IT and Supply Chain Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

A firm's cash flow policies, which manage working capital in the form of cash receivables from customers, inventory holdings, and cash payments to suppliers, are inexorably linked to the firm's operations. Building on earlier research, this study: (i) extends prior studies by examining the relationships between changes in cash flow measures and changes in firm financial performance using a longitudinal sample of firm data; and (ii) investigates the direction of the relationship between quarterly changes in cash flow positions and firm financial performance. This study is conducted using the Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) methodology to analyze a longitudinal sample of …


The Contribution Of Entrepreneurship And Innovation To Thai Sme Manufacturing Performance, Teerawat Charoenrat, Charles Harvie Jan 2014

The Contribution Of Entrepreneurship And Innovation To Thai Sme Manufacturing Performance, Teerawat Charoenrat, Charles Harvie

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play a pivotal role in accelerating Thai economic development. SMEs provide backward linkages for large enterprises through supply of goods, services, information and knowledge. Despite SMEs obvious significance, they face several severe difficulties that act as obstacles to their further development. The primary motivation of this study is to upon identifying: 1) the role, significance and contribution of Thai manufacturing SMEs to the Thai economy; 2) entrepreneur characteristics (age, gender, education, work experience); and (3) innovation (new products, processes, organization structure).


A Heuristic For The Analysis Of Truncated Standard Normal Distribution Assemblies, John Walter Ralls, Cesar Ariel Pinto, Shannon R. Bowling, Resit Unal, Charles B. Daniels, S. Long (Ed.), E.H. Ng (Ed.), C. Downing (Ed.) Jan 2014

A Heuristic For The Analysis Of Truncated Standard Normal Distribution Assemblies, John Walter Ralls, Cesar Ariel Pinto, Shannon R. Bowling, Resit Unal, Charles B. Daniels, S. Long (Ed.), E.H. Ng (Ed.), C. Downing (Ed.)

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The analysis of data sets and process conditions commonly assume the use of standard normal distributions and truncated standard normal distributions (TSND). The use of these distributions has application to various engineering disciplines along with numerous other industries (e.g., financial industries, medical fields, management, etc.). For engineering managers, the use of truncated standard normal distributions has particular relevance when evaluating process conditions commonly associated with assembly tolerances, manufacturing, and associated measures of quality. This article summarizes a heuristic approach for the analysis of assembly-level truncated standard normal distributions and associated research from a recent dissertation (Ralls, 2014). This article provides …


Measuring Manufacturing: How The Computer And Semiconductor Industries Affect The Numbers And Perceptions, Susan N. Houseman, Timothy J. Bartik, Timothy Sturgeon Jan 2014

Measuring Manufacturing: How The Computer And Semiconductor Industries Affect The Numbers And Perceptions, Susan N. Houseman, Timothy J. Bartik, Timothy Sturgeon

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

Growth in U.S. manufacturing’s real value-added has exceeded that of aggregate GDP, except during recessions, leading many to conclude that the sector is healthy and that the 30 percent decline in manufacturing employment since 2000 is largely the consequence of automation. The robust growth in real manufacturing GDP, however, is driven by one industry segment: computers and electronic products. In most of manufacturing, real GDP growth has been weak or negative and productivity growth modest. The extraordinary real GDP growth in computer-related industries reflects prices for computers and semiconductors that, when adjusted for product quality improvements, are falling rapidly. Productivity …