Since 2003, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has changed its arrangements for providing logistics support for its Harrier and Tornado fast jet aircraft by rationalising the activity and location of its maintenance and repair services. The NAO report finds that these changes have reduced costs by a cumulative saving of £1.4 billion, and although availability of the aircraft temporarily declined during the transition period, availability targets for these fast jet aircraft are now being met. The MoD has applied new techniques, including introducing pulse lines, similar to a production line used in the motor car industry, which has led to improved productivity with fewer man-hours and less workspace and spares holdings. The MoD has also entered into new partnerships with industry which are managed by teams made up of contractors and military personnel situated at main RAF bases. The new arrangements are based on industry making available a specified number of aircraft or engines, rather than on the number of repairs they carry out or the number of spare parts they provide. The report identifies two significant risks that still remain, relating to: the provision of sufficient trained personnel to man the pulse lines for both jets; and the supply chain to ensure the timely supply of spare parts for both types of aircraft.

Interest in the phenomenon known as "lean" has grown significantly in recent years. This is the first volume to provide an academically rigorous overview of the field of lean management, introducing the reader to the application of lean in diverse application areas, from the production floor to sales and marketing, from the automobile industry to academic institutions. The volume collects contributions from well-known lean experts and up-and-coming scholars from around the world. The chapters provide a detailed description of lean management across the manufacturing enterprise (supply chain, accounting, production, sales, IT etc.), and offer important perspectives for applying lean across different industries (construction, healthcare, logistics). The contributors address challenges and opportunities for future development in each of the lean application areas, concluding most chapters with a short case study to illustrate current best practice. The book is divided into three parts: The Lean Enterprise Lean across Industries A Lean World. This handbook is an excellent resource for business and management students as well as any academics, scholars, practitioners, and consultants interested in the "lean world."

For manufacturers of complex engineering equipment, the focus on service and achieving outcomes for customers is the key to growth. Yet, the capability to provide service for complex engineered products is less understood. Taking a trans-disciplinary approach, Complex Engineering Service Systems covers various aspects of service in complex engineering systems, with perspectives from engineering, management, design, operations research, strategy, marketing and operations management that are relevant to different disciplines, organisation functions, and geographic locations. The focus is on the many facets of complex engineering service systems around a core integrative framework of three value transformations – that of material/equipment, information and people. Complex Engineering Service Systems is the outcome of the EPSRC/BAE Systems S4T (Service Support Solutions: Strategy and Transition) research programme of 10 universities and 27 researchers, which examined how high-value manufacturers of complex engineering products adapt to a multi-partnered environment to design and deliver value in a service system. Complex Engineering Service Systems aims to be the main source of knowledge for academics and professionals in the research and practice of contracting, managing, designing, leading, and delivering complex engineering service systems. The book takes a value-based approach to integrating equipment and human factors into a total service provision. In doing so, it aims to advance the field of service systems and engineering.

This is the ground-breaking new book for aspiring purchasing and supply chain leaders and anyone with a keen interest in this rapidly evolving field. For too long business has focused on short-term cost advantages through low-cost country sourcing with little regard for the longer-term implications of global sustainability. As the first book to fully address the environmental, social and economic challenges of how companies manage purchasing and supply chains, it aims to inspire the development of current and future purchasing and supply chain leaders. In addition to explaining the basic principles and processes of both purchasing and supply chain management, the book evaluates how to develop strategic and sustainable purchasing and supply chain management. A key message is that purchasing and supply chain management needs to focus on value creation rather than cost cutting. This requires the development of completely new purchasing and supply chain models that involve closed-loop supply structures, supply chain transparency and collaboration with new stakeholders in traditional sourcing and supply chain processes. Aimed at students, educators and practitioners the book integrates sustainability into each chapter as a core element of purchasing and supply chain management. Incorporating case studies from industry into each chapter, the book strikes a balance between theoretical frameworks and guidelines for implementation in practice.

Drawn from the results of five seminars this unique book looks at the four areas of: public sector reform; essential features for public leaders; public leadership in action; and the outline of a public leadership approach for the future. It seeks to give public leadership a firm foothold within the study of leadership in general.

The performance of public services is now more closely scrutinised than ever before. Every teacher, doctor, social worker or probation officer knows that behind them stands a restless army of overseers, equipped with a panoply of league tables, star ratings, user opinion surveys, performance indicators and the like with which to judge them. This increased scrutiny and performance measurement has undoubtedly produced improved public services. Yet we still have a limited understanding about how this information can be best used to bring about improvements in performance. What goes on inside the 'black box' of public organisations to move from information to action, or from 'knowing' to 'doing'? This book tackles this important question by reviewing a wide range of performance mechanisms. It explores how information about performance can be translated into improvements in services and, conversely, why this does not always happen in practice.

Incorporating HC 983-i-iv, session 2007-08