An interview with Wickham Skinner, Emeritus Professor at Harvard Business School

Abstract

Purpose -The aim of this series of papers is to offer key insights from eminent professors or practitioners within the field of Operations Management. This is the second of a series of interviews with "Operations Masters" and future contributions will include a range of inputs from manufacturing and services, private and public sectors. This series aims to provide an important contribution to the understanding of the strategic importance of operations management in a range of settings. Design/methodology/approach -An interview with Professor Wickham, Emeritus Professor at Harvard Business School, a leading international figure in the field of operations management, whose contribution to operations manufacturing/strategy has been cited as seminal. The interview was conducted by Professor Steve Brown, Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Operations & Production Management. Findings -Wickham Skinner explains how he developed his reasoning behind his Harvard Business Review articles and books. He also describes how courses were developed at Harvard Business School to reflect the changing nature of business. He examines some of the challenges facing academics and practitioners alike in highly competitive, global business environments. Originality/value -Professor Wickham Skinner is a leading international figure in the field of manufacturing and operations strategy. In this interview he offers key insights into how he first developed the notion of operations as a corporate concern. The message is highly relevant to academics and practitioners today.

Considering Consumers’ Green Preferences and Government Subsidies in the Decision Making of the Construction and Demolition Waste Recycling Supply Chain: A Stackelberg Game Approach

“…Based on the current problems faced by the construction industry, it is important to focus the impact of consumer green preferences and government subsidies on CDW resource utilization supply chain decisions for the development of recycling and remanufacturing. With the aim of solving problems, and by combining real, down-to-earth, and key breakthroughs [26], this study introduced the product's green degree into the consumer demand function, which complements the decision-making research on the CDW resource utilization supply chain. Moreover, the contributions and implications of this paper are as follows: (1) Considering the influence of consumers' green preferences on the pricing of CDW remanufactured products, this paper enriches the theoretical research on consumer behavior in the remanufacturing closed-loop supply chain.…”

Gestão da qualidade em uma empresa prestadora de serviços na área de consultoria e assessoria em marketing digital / Quality management in a company providing services in the field of digital marketing consultancy and advice

“…O termo vem ganhando destaque com o passar dos anos e sendo alvo de diversos estudos, tanto acadêmicos quanto práticos. Esse modo de gestão tem ganhado um alto grau de popularidade pelo mundo devido aos impactos que seus fatores e práticas podem causar sobre o sucesso de uma organização, sua sobrevivência e desenvolvimento em um mundo globalizado de ampla concorrência (SAMSON;TERZIOVSKI, 1999;BROWN, 2013;CALVO-MOURA et al, 2013).…”

“…O desdobramento da função qualidade (QFD), processo de conversão de dados em requisitos (CARPINETTI, 2012), foi montado juntamente com um diagrama de relações, para o qual foram também listados 6 requisitos técnicos do projeto (dentre os mais comuns no setor) que mais se relacionavam com os tópico-padrão assimilados entre os 26 requisitos principais.…”

Modelling company generic production capabilities in process industries

“…It is recommended that companies follow Miller's (1992) sound advice that "managers may have to perform their adaptive tasks sequentially striving for a harmonious alignment among their internal variables in order to achieve 153 Modelling company generic production smooth functioning, but periodically disrupting this harmony to adjust to a changing environment". When a company's external environment, internal production technology, and products change, using the proposed configuration model in the analysis of the material transformation system can be an interesting avenue to follow to discuss and position and configure the company production system as a "focused factory" in the spirit of Skinners wider definition of this concept (Brown, 2013).…”