The coherence of EU trade, competition, and industry policies in the high tech sector : the case of the telecommunications services sector

We analyze the coherence existing among European Union competition, industry, and trade policies in the high tech sector in general terms focusing on its specific features (externalities, fast progress) and their effects on the emergence and treatment of policy consistency and conflicts. Second, this analysis is applied to the European telecommunications services sector. The examination of this sector and the relevant EU policies reveals a consensus on giving priority to competition. However structural factors prevent policy implementation to reflect much liberalization and harmonization and business responses to trade globalization challenge effective competition. The potential, important role of standardization is shown.economics of technology ;

Lean Implementation Considerations in Factory Operations of Low Volume/High Complexity Production Systems

The researchers of the Lean Aircraft Initiative developed a hypothesized lean implementation model seeking to provide its members guidance on implementing lean transitions in factory operations of low volume/high complexity production systems. The model features four phases: (1) building a lean infrastructure to support lean behavior, (2) redesigning the flow of products in the factory, (3) revamping the operations management and (4) fostering process improvement. An order of implementation is discussed and each phase has implementation steps as well. Following the development of the hypothesized lean implementation model, twelve case studies were used to test the model. This report details the model and analyzes the case studies using the model as a framework

Development of a measurement for technology learning process (TLP)

Advanced Manufacturing Technologies (AMTs) are widely used by manufacturing organisations all over the world. Unfortunately, the process of implementation of AMT projects has been unsatisfactory and sometimes led to total failure. In the literature, various reasons are brought forward for the deficiency of companies to deal with such technologies. Most cited reasons were managerial incompetence, organisational inertia and lack of and/or insufficient Technology Learning Process (TLP). Particularly, the Technology Learning Process (TLP) was widely recognised as a significant factor influencing technological change management. For instance, several authors believed that the failure of companies to manage technological change was due to the absence of effective TLP. Hence, studying and identifying the impact of TLP on the technological change management and on operations management is of real importance to reduce this rate of failure. In order to understand how TLP was implemented and what measures were used to determine the practice level of TLP, face-to-face interviews with experienced industrial project managers were held. Based on these interviews, this study developed 46 parameters in order to assess the practice level of TLP in Irish organisations. These parameters were classified into four levels including Basic Level, Average Level, Advanced Level, and World-Class level. To examine the impact of these parameters on the technological change management, postal and online questionnaires were designed and dispatched to all pharmaceutical and chemical firms in Ireland. This was a two-fold objective survey. The first objective was to verify the suitability of this set of parameters over a larger sample of pharmaceutical and chemical organisations. The second objective was to determine the level of TLP practice within the pharmaceutical and chemical firms in Ireland and to investigate the impact of each parameter of this set of parameters on the process of implementation of AMT projects and also on the organisation performance as a whole. The suitability of the proposed conceptual model on wide population was verified. The developed set of parameters was found not only to have significant impact on the process of AMT implementation but also have an influence on the organisation performance