Publications

March–April 1992
Article

Creating Project Plans to Focus Product Development

By: S. C. Wheelwright and K. B. Clark

Keywords: Planning; Product; Research and Development

July 2004 (Revised August 2004)
Case

Superior Manufacturing Company

By: David F. Hawkins, James W. Culliton and Jacob Cohen

Management must extract relevant cost data from the company's cost accounting system for product line decisions. A rewritten version of an earlier case. View Details

Keywords: Cost Accounting; Product Development; Manufacturing Industry

1994
Article

Accelerating the Design-build-test Cycle for Effective Product Development

By: S. C. Wheelwright and K. B. Clark

Keywords: Design; Product; Research and Development

August 1999 (Revised November 2000)
Background Note

Issues of Product Policy

Explores the basic vocabulary and issues related to product policy within a firm. View Details

Keywords: Product Marketing; Product Development

July 1999 (Revised November 1999)
Case

Northwest Airlines and the Detroit Snowstorm (A)

Northwest Airlines forced hundreds of passengers to wait up to 8 1/2 hours on aircraft after reaching their destination in an unusually horrible service disaster. The case explores what occurred, why it occurred, and the feelings of those involved. View Details

Keywords: Service Delivery; Failure; Air Transportation Industry; Service Industry

October 1999 (Revised January 2000)
Case

Alaska Airlines: For the same price, you just get more...

Alaska Airlines grapples with the issue of whether or not advanced use of technology to enable its customers to serve themselves (self-service) in certain airport functions will help it to achieve competitive advantage. View Details

Keywords: Technology; Service Delivery; Competitive Advantage; Air Transportation Industry; Alaska

December 1998
Supplement

Vermeer Technologies: Realizing the Dream

By: Ashish Nanda

The Vermeer team discusses the organizational and strategic challenges they confront as product development and marketing proceed at the breakneck pace of "Internet time." View Details

Keywords: Product Development; Product Marketing

December 1997
Case

Birman Industrial Products Corporation

By: Janice H. Hammond

Keywords: Product Design; Strategic Planning; Industrial Products Industry

August 1993 (Revised August 2002)
Exercise

Work Methods Design Exercise

Teams of students receive identical product design specifications, a sample unit of the product, and a series of assignment questions that entail time and motion studies, which they must both understand and perform before class discussion. In class, teams explain how... View Details

Keywords: Resource Allocation; Product Development

May 1979 (Revised April 1987)
Case

Great Lakes Diversified Corp.: The Detroit Plant

By: W. Earl Sasser and David C. Rikert

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Planning; Production; Strategy; Michigan

September 1983 (Revised October 1984)
Case

Boston Whaler, Inc.: Managing the Dealer Network

Mr. Joseph Lawler, newly-appointed president of Boston Whaler, Inc. (BWI), believes that better dealer management is the key to his company's continued growth. BWI manufactured a high-price, high performance line of power and other boats for the recreational,... View Details

Keywords: Distribution Channels; Product Marketing; Consumer Products Industry

March 2016 (Revised June 2016)
Case

Gotong Royong: Toward Sustainable Palm Oil

By: Rebecca Henderson, Hann-Shuin Yew and Monica Baraldi

In late 2015, Jeff Seabright, chief sustainability officer at Unilever, had to report to Unilever CEO Paul Polman on the effort to transform palm oil cultivation. Historically, palm oil was produced using unsustainable methods that included burning large tracts of... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Environment; Industry Self-regulation; Corporate Image; Corporate Strategy; Indonesia; Malaysia