Manufacturing’s central role in global innovation Companies compete on the decisions they make. For years—even decades—in response to intensifying global competition, companies decided to outsource their manufacturing operations in order to reduce costs. But we are now seeing the alarming long-term effect of those choices: in many cases, once manufacturing capabilities go away, so does much of the ability to innovate and compete. Manufacturing, it turns out, really matters in an innovation-driven economy. In Producing Prosperity, Harvard Business School professors Gary Pisano and Willy Shih show the disastrous consequences of years of poor sourcing decisions and underinvestment in manufacturing capabilities. They reveal how today’s undervalued manufacturing operations often hold the seeds of tomorrow’s innovative new products, arguing that companies must reinvest in new product and process development in the US industrial sector. Only by reviving this “industrial commons” can the world’s largest economy build the expertise and manufacturing muscle to regain competitive advantage. America needs a manufacturing renaissance—for restoring itself, and for the global economy as a whole. This will require major changes. Pisano and Shih show how company-level choices are key to the sustained success of industries and economies, and they provide business leaders with a framework for understanding the links between manufacturing and innovation that will enable them to make better outsourcing decisions. They also detail how government must change its support of basic and applied scientific research, and promote collaboration between business and academia. For executives, policymakers, academics, and innovators alike, Producing Prosperity provides the clearest and most compelling account yet of how the American economy lost its competitive edge—and how to get it back.

Research report on production management, manufacturing competitiveness, and the evolutionary process of technologys, based on a case study of the USA motor vehicle industry - discusses Innovation trends 1893-1981, causes of current industrial decline (incl. De- maturity, technological obsolescence, competition and labour relations); provides comparisons of labour productivity, labour costs and production costs with Japan; stresses the need for product development, workers participation, and quality of working life. Graphs, references.

The years since the global financial crisis have seen something of a renaissance in the manufacturing industry. The United States has launched its Advanced Manufacturing Partnership, and China owes much of its spectacular economic boom in the last decades to its being the 'world's factory'. Is there room for the EU in this landscape? This timely new book explores Europe’s role in this evolving environment. It argues that on the one hand, in terms of sheer numbers, the role of the manufacturing industry in the EU is on a par with other major global economies. However, the book also states that Europe falls short of its global competitors (the USA in particular) in terms of its involvement in the most innovative manufacturing sectors. The volume therefore argues that this creates the opportunity for a new European industrial policy. Exploring the development of current EU policy, the book puts forward suggestions as to how the EU can improve in terms of the competitiveness of its technology policy. Placing the EU’s position in the context of the industrial structures of the USA, Japan and the BRICs, the book blends theoretical models and practical examples in order to offer a the state of the art look at the current and future direction of Europe’s industrial policy. This book will be of relevance to all those with an interest in European economics, industrial economics, public policy, European politics and European studies.

How 16th century Venetian silk manufacturers met the challenge of demand for lighter and cheaper fabric. The manufacture of luxury textiles, such as silk, was central to an Italian Renaissance economy based on status and conspicuous consumption. From the rapidly changing fashions that drove demand to the jobs created for craftsmen, weavers, and merchants, the wealth and prestige associated with silk throughout Europe made it Italy's leading export industry. In this important book, Luca Molà examines the silk industry in Renaissance Venice amid changing markets, suppliers, producers, and government regulations. Drawing on archival research and a vast amount of European scholarship, Molà documents the innovations Venetians made in manufacturing and marketing to spur the silk industry. He uncovers the alliance between manufacturers and government to promote the industry in a changing international economic environment. Through flexible laws, quality was regulated to meet the varying requirements of an increasing range of customers. Molà also analyzes state policy that favored the development and organization of silk producers throughout the Terraferma. His findings contribute in an important way to the ongoing scholarly assessment of Venice's place in the economy of the Renaissance and the Mediterranean world.

The story of arms in Western Europe from the Renaissance to the Industrial Revolution. A treasury of information based on solid scholarship, anyone seeking a factual and vivid account of the story of arms from the Renaissance period to the Industrial Revolution will welcome this book. The author chooses as his starting-point the invasion of Italy by France in 1494, which sowed the dragon's teeth of all the successive European wars; the French invasion was to accelerate the trend towards new armaments and new methods of warfare. The authordescribes the development of the handgun and the pike, the use and style of staff-weapons, mace and axe and war-hammer, dagger and dirk and bayonet. He shows how armour attained its full Renaissance splendour and then suffered itssorry and inevitable decline, culminating in the Industrial Revolution, with its far-reaching effects on military armaments. Above all, he follows the long history of the sword, queen of weapons, to the late eighteenth century, when it finally ceased to form a part of a gentleman's every-day wear. Lavishly illustrated. EWART OAKESHOTT was one of the world's leading authorities on the arms and armour of medieval Europe. His other works on the subject include Records of the Medieval Sword and The Sword in the Age of Chivalry.

Ever increasing research evidence continues to mount. Having started my research on the connection of the Hydraulis to the roots of the more recent Industrial Revolution at the University of St. Gallen in 1989 over 30 years ago, I continue to identify additional support for it. We do not know whether the beginnings of an Industrial Revolution in Hellenistic Greece would have continued if not cut off by the Roman Empire's conquests. Neither do we know whether the more recent (latent) Industrial Revolution could have risen up again in the 17th-century without Vitruvius or Hero of Alexander's preserved writings. The point of this book is to emphasize with new findings that had the Romans not stopped the growth of science and technology in the Hellenistic Period that it would have likely continued to develop into a full-fledged Industrial Revolution. Secondly, the more recent Industrial Revolution borrowed heavily on the technology and science of the Hellenistic Period. In the true sense of the "Renaissance" 17th-century industrial progress largely picked up the written remnants of Antiquity to be able to continue on after a centuries long caesura.