The economics miracle of our age has been the strength with which previously vanquished economics of Japan and West Germany have risen from the ashes of war to become two of the wealthiest societies in the world. They have achieved this result through the execution of sound manufacturing strategies clearly invented to produce high quality technology products requiring substantial research and development (R&D) expenditure and massive investment in new capital plant and machinery. China’s vast manufacturing base is raising its GDP by around 9 percent a year as a result of poorly endowed with natural resources and massive manpower. China will have the second largest economy in the world by 2050, after US. As a result of the growing tended to increase the proportion of manufacturing products both exported and imported by industrial nation like the US, EEC nations and Asian countries (Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, India and so on), China is being more successful and better equipped for this competitive rivalry than others.
A nation’s ability to capture and retain a consistent or increasing share of the world market for manufactured products has considerable economic implication. In the first place it means it means that the largest economic sizes of plant incorporating the best technologies can be employed in the confidence that their capacities will be filled, yielding ‘technical benefits of scale’ and providing the user with cost advantages. Secondly, such investments permit productivity gains to be realized by replacing or supplementing human effort with machine power and artificial intelligence.
Productivity improvements can be made in the face of dwindling profits providing there exists the human will to realize such improvements. To achieve this end it is necessary for pride (in the product being manufactured) and total commitment of the workforce (to make products better than those of competitors) to predominate over entrenched restrictive working practices and antipathy or even suspicion of technological and organisational change. Therefore, a Luddite mentality must not prevail if a nation’s workforce is to prosper in the long run but instead it must be fired by the passion to excel in the manufacture of products which it must carefully select and fund accordingly.
Manufacturing organisations have to accommodate the inevitable obsolescence of products and processes, by anticipating and meeting market change. They can achieve this in three ways:
Through incremental improvements to their products, plants, processes and working methods;
By exploiting their expertise in different marketing areas; and
Through radical innovations incorporating new technologies, processes and products.
Technological innovation requires a commitment both at the national and corporate level for innovation requires a commitment both at the national and corporate level for invention and development of innovations which then become the nation’s ‘seed corn’ for its future prosperity. A definitive policy towards technological innovation is required for another major reason. The major industrial nations compete for markets against each other but also to an ever increasing extent with manufacturers from developing nations. The industrialized nations have moral obligation to ensure that the living standards of the poorer nations are raised substantially anyway but, as manufacturing processes and techniques become standardized, these nations will implement these schemes and with modern plants and cheap labour they will posses a comparative cost advantage permitting them to take market share where conventional products are concerned. To contain this change at a rate which is politically acceptable to those involved, the developed nations have to invent and exploit new products and processes which involve high levels of human skill, knowledge and inventiveness: in other words they have to innovate to survive.
Mao Tse Tung (1950) explained his view in his book "The Little Red Book" that to this day many of comrades still do not understand that they must attend to the quantitative aspects of things-the basic statistics. They have no figure in their heads, and, as a result, cannot help making mistakes. From this argument, we can figure out that eventually most of the companies need to invest in new, more productive assets if that wish to survive and prosper.
A nation’s ability to capture and retain a consistent or increasing share of the world market for manufactured products has considerable economic implication. In the first place it means it means that the largest economic sizes of plant incorporating the best technologies can be employed in the confidence that their capacities will be filled, yielding ‘technical benefits of scale’ and providing the user with cost advantages. Secondly, such investments permit productivity gains to be realized by replacing or supplementing human effort with machine power and artificial intelligence.
Productivity improvements can be made in the face of dwindling profits providing there exists the human will to realize such improvements. To achieve this end it is necessary for pride (in the product being manufactured) and total commitment of the workforce (to make products better than those of competitors) to predominate over entrenched restrictive working practices and antipathy or even suspicion of technological and organisational change. Therefore, a Luddite mentality must not prevail if a nation’s workforce is to prosper in the long run but instead it must be fired by the passion to excel in the manufacture of products which it must carefully select and fund accordingly.
Manufacturing organisations have to accommodate the inevitable obsolescence of products and processes, by anticipating and meeting market change. They can achieve this in three ways:
Through incremental improvements to their products, plants, processes and working methods;
By exploiting their expertise in different marketing areas; and
Through radical innovations incorporating new technologies, processes and products.
Technological innovation requires a commitment both at the national and corporate level for innovation requires a commitment both at the national and corporate level for invention and development of innovations which then become the nation’s ‘seed corn’ for its future prosperity. A definitive policy towards technological innovation is required for another major reason. The major industrial nations compete for markets against each other but also to an ever increasing extent with manufacturers from developing nations. The industrialized nations have moral obligation to ensure that the living standards of the poorer nations are raised substantially anyway but, as manufacturing processes and techniques become standardized, these nations will implement these schemes and with modern plants and cheap labour they will posses a comparative cost advantage permitting them to take market share where conventional products are concerned. To contain this change at a rate which is politically acceptable to those involved, the developed nations have to invent and exploit new products and processes which involve high levels of human skill, knowledge and inventiveness: in other words they have to innovate to survive.
Mao Tse Tung (1950) explained his view in his book "The Little Red Book" that to this day many of comrades still do not understand that they must attend to the quantitative aspects of things-the basic statistics. They have no figure in their heads, and, as a result, cannot help making mistakes. From this argument, we can figure out that eventually most of the companies need to invest in new, more productive assets if that wish to survive and prosper.
No comments:
Post a Comment