If you didn’t catch the article by Scott Thurm in today’s Wall Street Journal, you should check it out.
He reports that researchers from Stanford University, the London School of Economics and the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found that solid management techniques, yes, the kind we teach in business schools, actually make a difference to the performance of manufacturing plants. They found that better managed facilities employed management tools that helped them achieve better performance. It’s comforting to know that the research we do and the resulting tools and techniques can have a good performance effect.
Among the studies’ more intersting finding is that (for now) factories in the US are better managed than those in other countries. But – that gap could soon close, they warn.
