The purpose of this chapter is to describe the complementary elements of a logistical platform and show how they can work together to deliver a high ROIC. A secondary purpose of the chapter is to illustrate the power and limitations of a strategy of value capture based exclusively on ROIC.I use...

The purpose of this chapter is to understand how technology contributed to the emergence and evolution of modular production networks between 1980 and the present. In a modular production network, the activities needed to create a functioning system (for example, a personal computer) are...

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the value structure of flow production processes and to explain why it is necessary to rationalize flow processes using the tools of systematic management. I first explain the problems facing managers of multi-step flow production processes at the end of...

The purpose of this chapter is to explain what the technologies of flow production with bottlenecks require and reward in organizations. I argue that the organizations best suited to implementing these technologies are vertically integrated spanning all potential bottlenecks. They are subject to...

Many products are manufactured in networks of firms linked by transactions, but comparatively little is known about how or why such transaction networks differ. This paper investigates the transaction networks of two large sectors in Japan at a single point in time. In characterizing these...

Any complex technological system can be decomposed into a number of subsystems and associated components, some of which are core to system function while others are only peripheral. The dynamics of how such “core-periphery” structures evolve and become embedded in a firm's innovation...