Fabrication and manufacturing

Competing in overcrowded industries is no way to sustain high performance. The real opportunity is to create blue oceans of uncontested market space.

When Ben Franklin wrote Poor Richard’s Almanac and the words, “A little neglect may breed great mischief,” he did not have price fixing in mind. To the 47 executives in companies in the folding-box industry convicted of price fixing, however, the words seem tailored to fit. In those companies convicted under antitrust laws in 1976, […]

Femtosecond lasers emit pulses of light that last just a millionth of a billionth of a second. These lasers enable surgery so precise that a single mitochondrion can be removed without harming the rest of the cell, and machining so controlled that structures can be micromachined within a piece of glass. Eric Mazur, a professor […]

The more networked a market is, the harder it is for an innovation to take hold. Smart innovators learn to orchestrate marketwide change by starting from the endgame they desire.

Three ways to minimize risk.

Academic–industry alliances have been around long enough to sprout their own ivy, yet these staples of technology innovation have undergone little innovation themselves. Now a few companies are pioneering ways to get more out of university research. One particularly successful model comes from Porsche, which has brought academic brainpower inside. A few years ago, Porsche, […]

When corporate leaders or the organizations they represent mess up, they face the difficult decision of whether to apologize publicly. A public apology...

At this large GM plant the union and management jointly seek to change the meaning of work itself

High-stakes projects need all-star teams. But all-stars often play by their own rules—and fight like cats and dogs.

Anecdotal evidence is at odds with the data.

Hardware startups are easier to launch than ever.

To the trained eye, even a quick plant tour can reveal a lot about a company. Here’s how to tell if a factory is truly lean—in as little as 30 minutes.

How three essential practices can address even the most complex global problems

Lessons from Nike’s playbook

Traditional go-to-market strategies don’t work because they assume customers will stay in the channels that were designed for them. Time for a fresh look at how shoppers really behave.

The story of a soccer ball factory in Pakistan.

My job as CEO is not to make business decisions—it’s to push managers to be leaders.

Two Japanese automakers have had stunning success building relationships with North American suppliers—often the same companies that have had contentious dealings with Detroit’s Big Three. What are Toyota and Honda doing right?

Former Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley on lessons learned the hard way

As Toyota becomes the world’s biggest automaker, the company finds its much-heralded ways of managing for the long term to be more important—and under greater pressure—than ever before.