Operating Systems - Publications - Faculty & Research

01 Mar 2010
Op-Ed

A Golden Opportunity for Ford and GM

[process] will take enormous effort, ingenuity, and discipline along with massive investments.” No doubt Toyota will regain some of its lost market share in the short term, to the extent the automaker's production systems can respond by... View Details

Keywords: by Bill George; Auto

09 Jan 2006
Research & Ideas

What Really Drives Your Strategy?

processes. As we walked through this research with them, they could see the impact that middle level and operating managers have on the process, both on its implementation and on the ideas that arise. I think they realized that they... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

23 Jun 2015
First Look

First Look: June 23, 2015

Sciences Modularity and Organizations By: Baldwin, Carliss Y Abstract—Modularity describes the degree to which a complex system can be broken apart into subunits (modules) that can be recombined in various ways. Modularity is important... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

November 1992 (Revised January 2002)
Case

Process Control at Polaroid (A)

By: H. Kent Bowen and Steven C. Wheelwright

Describes the initial efforts at a film production plant to shift from a traditional QC inspection mentality to a worker-based process control mentality. Students can prepare SPC charts, propose actions needed, and combine steps into an overall action plan. View Details

Keywords: Management Systems; Operations; Quality; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Business Processes; Change Management; Consumer Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry

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February 1990 (Revised March 1990)
Case

Quantum Semiconductor, Inc.

By: Janice H. Hammond and Roy D. Shapiro

Quantum is faced with a difficult ethical dilemma--industry studies provide evidence that chemicals used in semiconductor manufacturing may cause women working in fabrication cleanrooms to suffer a higher likelihood of spontaneous abortions. The possibility of other... View Details

Keywords: Safety; Prejudice and Bias; Law; Equality and Inequality; Cost; Production; Ethics; Health; Gender; Semiconductor Industry

Citation

Find at Harvard

25 Sep 2007
First Look

First Look: September 25, 2007

been priorities in national initiatives. Conclusions. Our study suggests an underutilized strategy for improving patient safety and staff efficiency: leveraging frontline staff experiences with work systems to identify and remove View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

June 2010
Teaching Note

Sheikh Mohammed and the Making of "Dubai, Inc." (TN)

By: Anthony Mayo and Johnathan Cromwell

Teaching Note for 410063. View Details

Keywords: Balance and Stability; Growth and Development; Identity; Government and Politics; Infrastructure; Financial Crisis; Labor; Economic Systems; Culture; Managerial Roles; Local Range; Dubai

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2013
Working Paper

Visualizing and Measuring Enterprise Application Architecture: An Exploratory Telecom Case

By: Robert Lagerstrom, Carliss Y. Baldwin, Alan MacCormack and Stephan Aier

We test a method for visualizing and measuring enterprise application architectures. The method was designed and previously used to reveal the hidden internal architectural structure of software applications. The focus of this paper is to test if it can also uncover... View Details

Keywords: Communication Technology; Complexity; Applications and Software; Product Design; Telecommunications Industry

Citation

Read Now

12 Aug 2014
First Look

First Look: August 12

notably higher entry rates and increases in plant productivity. These results are not present for districts located on another major highway system, the North-South East-West corridor (NS-EW). Improvements for portions of the NS-EW system... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

26 Apr 2011
Op-Ed

HBS Faculty Comment on Environmental Issues for Earth Day

work together to create all aspects of the urban environment. Also necessary are new systems and processes for helping cities operate efficiently and effectively, including the use of new information and... View Details

Keywords: by Staff; Energy; Utilities

01 Nov 1999
Research & Ideas

Companies, Cultures and the Transformation to the Transnational

structure, social history, and educational system, companies developed under a system of family management that emphasized personal relationships more than formal structures, and relied more on broad-gauged financial controls than on... View Details

Keywords: by Christopher A. Bartlett & Sumantra Ghoshal

06 Apr 2010
First Look

First Look: April 6

Kanebo, a large Japanese cosmetics company whose management engaged in a massive accounting fraud. ChuoAoyama was PwC's Japanese affiliate and one of Japan's "Big Four" audit firms. In May 2006, the Japanese Financial Services Agency (FSA) suspended... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

10 Apr 2013
Research & Ideas

Learning Curve: Making the Most of Outsourcing

shorter read times did not appear to come at the expense of clinical quality; the rates of "discrepancies" reported by customers was low. The researchers point to prior research to explain why. Repeated experience helps the service provider learn the customer's... View Details

Keywords: by Paul Guttry; Health

18 Dec 2007
First Look

First Look: December 18, 2007

institutions. Risk-adjusted CCA balance sheets facilitate simulations and stress testing to evaluate the potential impact of policies to manage systemic risk. Purchase the paper from SSRN.com ($5): http://papers.nber.org/papers/w13607... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

05 Jun 2013
Op-Ed

Corporate Leaders Need to Step Up on Climate Change

a problem, as Superstorm Sandy demonstrated. So despite perceptions that "sustainable business" is up and running, the environment reminds us we're failing to deal with the problem at anywhere near sufficient scale. Because climate change requires a View Details

Keywords: by Michael Toffel & Auden Schendler

31 Mar 2002
Research & Ideas

You’re Wasting Your Employees! What You Can Do About It

operations of any company that wishes to flourish in the new age. And yet, a decade of organizational delayering, destaffing, restructuring, and reengineering has produced employees who are more exhausted than empowered, more cynical than... View Details

Keywords: by Christopher A. Bartlett & Sumantra Ghoshal

27 Sep 2016
First Look

September 27, 2016

concentration in the origins of invention. Download working paper: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=51660 Cohort Turnover and Operational Performance: The July Phenomenon in Teaching Hospitals By: Song, Hummy, Robert S.... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Confronting the Challenges that Face Bricks-and-Mortar Stores

day long and would often shut off the monitors. When a Boston-area bank first tried out videoconferencing kiosks to sell financial services, customers refused to use them. The systems were located in closed booths that granted privacy but... View Details

Keywords: by Raymond Burke; Retail

Summer 2020
Article

Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains?: The COVID-19 Pandemic Should Be a Wake-up Call for Managers and Prompt Them to Consider Actions That Will Improve Their Resilience to Future Shocks

By: Willy C. Shih

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the complex interdependencies of globalized supply chains. While these global multistage production networks had spread during a relatively benign environment of falling trade barriers and increasing interdependencies among countries,... View Details