Arnoud De Meyer

Singapore Management University | smu · Department of Operations Management

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note...

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note...

The path for elevating the role of manufacturing in the company strategy in the last few decades has been rather clear: improve the basic production capabilities—typically quality, reliability, lead times, and cost efficiency of production processes. Leading Japanese companies, like Toyota, showed the way. But as many have heeded the advice and fol...

With the advent of new technologies, rapidly changing customer needs, and emerging competitors, companies across more and more industries are seeing their time-honored ways of making money under threat. In this book, Arnoud De Meyer and Peter J. Williamson explain how business can meet these challenges by building a large and dynamic ecosystem of p...

Alliances for new product development have been studied extensively in the operations management literature. Alliances between an innovator and a partner create value by utilizing their complementary capabilities. In this paper, we seek to understand what drives the alliance structure: the choice between collaborative alliances where the parties ex...

Management is not only taught in business schools. For more than 100 years it has also been taught by a special type of university that is ‘more than a business school’. An international group of university leaders trace the emergence, role and future contributions of ‘universities for business and management’

The literature in operations management has not kept up with the growing complexity of and opportunities offered by global production networks. Managers need new tools to cope with this complexity. We propose one that is based on a model that delayers the global plant network into a set of subnetworks on the basis of complexity and proprietary info...

A working paper in the INSEAD Working Paper Series is intended as a means whereby a faculty researcher's thoughts and findings may be communicated to interested readers. The paper should be considered preliminary in nature and may require revision. The purpose of this article is to develop a framework for analyzing project types and determining a s...

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Creating competitive advantage based on operations capabilities is likely to require much analysis and communication within the operations function. At the same time, much communication and joint strategizing with the top and other functional executives is likely to be needed as well. Hence, given that operations executives have limited time and al...

In this paper, we explore how firms can manage their sourcing better by developing relationships not only with their suppliers but also with their suppliers’ suppliers. Building on our four-year empirical investigation in the auto industry, we propose the concept of the Sourcing Hub, a collaborative center involving the firm, its suppliers and raw...

In this paper, we postulate that a firm's sourcing knowledge can be a strategic resource for the firm, and explore how firms can capture and build on their sourcing knowledge. We examine the sourcing experiences of four firms in four different countries in the automotive industry, who are in the process of improving their supply-chain partnerships....

A firm's raw material sourcing knowledge can be a strategic resource. This article explores how firms can capture and use this knowledge. It examines the sourcing experiences of four firms in four different countries in the automotive industry and identifies the raw material sourcing knowledge-related parameters. Synthesizing the findings from thes...

Purpose Doctoral education in business administration needs to change in order to cope with the fast growing demand for PhD holders, who can teach and perform research at a high quality level. Additionally, society has a rapidly growing need for knowledge workers who have a doctoral education or an equivalent. The traditional apprentice approach ma...

This qualitative study analyzes the decision-making process involved in adapting preconceived courses of action during the implementation of a strategic initiative. We observe that the type of decision-making process hinges on the nature of managers' emerging awareness of future events. When managers become aware of new uncertainty, the process inv...

Resource allocation decisions for NPD projects, alliance choice decisions and alliance performance are typically studied separately. In this paper we show that operational constraints coupled with resource allocation decisions have an impact on alliance choice. Our work further suggests that aligning alliance choice decisions with project and partn...

Changes in the global environment are generating opportunities for companies to build advantage by creating loosely coupled networks or ecosystems. Ecosystems are larger, more diverse, and more fluid than a traditional set of bilateral partnerships or complementors. By leveraging ecosystems, companies can deliver complex solutions while maintaining...

Purpose: Globalization of management education seems to have become the natural way to go for management and business schools. Almost every week one can find in the specialized press another announcement about an overseas campus, a new international partnership or a major research tie up. But announcing an international venture is easy, implementin...

Business schools, and MBA programs in particular, are about leadership development. We are preparing our graduates to take on leadership positions in the world of business, government and NGOs. A cursory glance at the websites of many of the top business schools reveals that, one way or another, we put leadership at the core of our unique selling p...

The structure and organization of international manufacturing has changed over the past twenty years. It seems as if manufacturing is moving towards emerging countries e.g. China or India, often to take advantage of lower labour costs. Whilst production cost is an important consideration in choosing a location for the factory, we argue that one sho...

Purpose – China has the potential to become a major source of innovation for the world. The scientific investment is in place and rapidly growing. But in order to reap the benefits of this investment its organisations will have to become better at managing innovation. One of the key elements of innovation management is the determination and impleme...

Offshoring manufacturing to low labor cost countries has become trendy. Nearly everyday one sees an announcement in the business press of companies moving to China or India. Whilst production cost is an important consideration in choosing a location for the factory, we argue that one should not become victim of a herd effect and that other paramete...

Managing the Unknown offers a new way of looking at the problem of managing projects in novel and unknown environments. From Europe's leading business school, this book shows how to manage two fundamental approaches that, in combination, offer the possibility of coping with unforeseen influences that inevitably arise in novel projects: Trial-and-Er...

Selectionism and Learning at Molecular Diagnostics Choosing and Combining Selectionism and Learning Reexamining the Circored Project with this New Framework Conclusion

Selectionism at Option International Explaining the Principles of Selectionism What Makes Selectionism Work? Conclusion

Learning at Escend Technologies Types of Project Learning Back to Escend: Drawing the Lessons

The Project of the Flying Car How Informal Stakeholders May Hold Up a Project Lessons: Map the Decision Influence Levels to Sell the Project

The Dangers of Project Contracts A Problem-Solving Process in the Face of Unk Unks Summary: A Process of Partner Relationship Management

Managerial Systems in Project Risk Management The Management Systems of Learning (Sub) Projects The Management Systems of Selectionist (Sub) Projects Integrating Learning and Selectionist Pieces into the Overall Project

Early Design of the Circored Technology Joint Venture and Business Plan The Construction Phase, May 1996– April 1999 The Startup Phase, May 1999– Summer 2000 A Management and Design Change Market Turmoil The Limits of PRM: Unforeseeable Uncertainty Summary and Conclusion

Choosing the Project Scope Building Organizational Capabilities Sponsoring Novel Projects Conclusion

Understanding the Fundamental Types of Uncertainty Foreseeable Uncertainty and Residual Risk Complexity Unknown Unknowns Expanding the Toolbox: Fundamental Approaches to Project Uncertainty

Background Risk Identification Risk Assessment and Prioritization Risk Monitoring and Management Managing Residual Risks Learning and Sharing Across Projects PRM as a Method and as a Mind-Set Summary and Conclusion

Open-Mindedness: Expecting the Unexpected Project Vision, or a “Map” of Unknown Terrain Robust-Mindedness: The Ability to Cope Summary: How to Foster an Unk Unk Mind-Set

Half Title Title Copyright Contents Foreword

Résumé L’Inde, la Chine et d’autres pays sont devenus des sources d’innovations dont les produits et services arrivent sur les marchés européens, un élargissement qui ne doit pas empêcher les entreprises occidentales de continuer à jouer un rôle significatif dans le jeu global de l’innovation.

At the end of 1984, for the third consecutive year, a research team from INSEAD administered a survey of the largest manufacturers in Europe. This survey attempts to provide an insight into the technological and manufacturing strategy designed and implemented by these large manufacturers. Each year since 1982 about 150 companies have completed the...

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new, empirically derived typology of plants in the international manufacturing network of multinational companies. This typology is based on the knowledge flows between the plants. In our research, network analysis has been used as a methodology for understanding the position of plants in international manu...

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What is the role of government in the digital economy? It is not our intention to go into an in-depth ideological debate on whether governments should intervene in the business sector. We will try to adopt a pragmatic approach and explore what already happens in practice. It is up to the reader to make a judgment to what extent the governments shou...

Offshoring manufacturing to low labor cost countries has become trendy. Nearly everyday one sees an announcement in the business press of companies moving to China or India. Whilst production cost is an important consideration in choosing a location for the factory, we argue that one should not become victim of a herd effect and that other paramete...

Europe enlarged its boundaries in 2004 with the accession of ten new member states to the European Union. The creation of an effective information society is seen as critical to the global competitiveness of Europe. Based upon detailed data collection and rigorous analysis, the book presents a benchmarking study of the 10 new member states and 3 ca...

East Asia, a group of countries including the ASEAN group as well as Taiwan, South Korea and China2 have witnessed a high economic growth during the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s. It has been convincingly argued that this economic growth was fuelled by adding foreign direct investment to a large pool of local, often highly skilled labour. B...

We have come to the end of our endeavour. It is time to review the objective we set ourselves at the beginning of this book. From any recent analysis of the competitive landscape in Asia you will have learned that some major changes are taking place. The emergence of China as a leader in manufacturing, and in the near future in design and developme...

Up to this point, we have covered a few topics that are generic to innovation but which require special attention in Asia. We provided examples of organizational change. We discussed some specific ideas related to markets and the marketing of Asian innovations. We gave inspirational case studies on how to mobilize the resources needed for innovatio...

Innovation is relatively new to Asia. Effective management of innovation is scarce in Asia. Until recently, innovation in Asia was a subject that commanded almost no attention. The region was booming; there were lots of investments in facilities and infrastructure. The ‘tiger economies’ were considered to be the new model of growth.

Innovation needs a different mindset, as we discussed in Chapter 4. But more importantly innovation begins with a customer. Without a comprehensive understanding of customers, innovation by a company is essentially its own private imagination. And, more often than not, such imagination is not commercially fertile. As we discussed in Chapter 3, a su...

Hitherto, we have highlighted many challenges specific to innovation in Asia. In Chapter 5, we discussed the hurdles related to markets and marketing for innovative companies in Asia. And in Chapter 6, we elaborated on the scarcity of human and financial resources required to develop innovative products.KeywordsAsian CompanySoftware PiracyTrips Agr...

We learned from our case studies and survey research that many managers still complain that the traditional organizational structures in Asian firms hinder innovation. One of the first priorities for the firms that want to innovate is to explore how they can adapt their organization and organizational culture to make it more conducive to innovation...

The core thesis we develop in this book can be summarized as follows: The innovation management lessons described in the previous chapter apply in Asia as well as they do in the rest of the world. But their implementation needs to take into account the specific hurdles that exist in non-Japan Asia.

This book is about how to innovate in Asia. We are not arguing that the fundamental concepts of innovation management are very different in Asia from those in Europe, Japan or North America. We learned through our interviews that the implementation of these concepts is influenced by the specific characteristics in the environment. This may sound ob...

In Chapter 4, we discussed how organizations in Asia need to and can rejuvenate themselves for the new competitive realities. In Chapter 5, we talked about the challenges pertaining to markets for innovation by Asian companies. But, to create new products and services and market them effectively, firms need certain resources. We discuss the issues...

The emergence of new information and communication technologies (ICT) has created opportunities for changing business models and rapidly developing service innovations. In this chapter, the author examines the typical process of the emergence of new technologies- from improving the efficiency and quality of current operations to enabling a rethinki...

With the rapid development of information and communications technologies (ICT), the greatest challenge to policy makers today is whether it will have a fundamental and structural impact on the way economies function and its sustainability on people's standard of living. Statistics showed that the ''Solow's productivity paradox'', which saw how pro...

This publication contains reprint articles for which IEEE does not hold copyright. Full text is not available on IEEE Xplore for these articles.

This article develops a model of a project as a payoff function that depends on the state of the world and the choice of a sequence of actions. A causal mapping, which may be incompletely known by the project team, represents the impact of possible actions on the states of the world. An underlying probability space represents available information...

Successful application of concurrent development processes (concurrent engineering) requires tight coordination. To speed development, tasks often proceed in parallel by relying on preliminary information from other tasks, information that has not yet been finalized. This frequently causes substantial rework using as much as 50% of total engineerin...

We argue that the management style of a project needs to be adapted to the type of pr oject uncertainty: variation, foreseen uncertainty, unforeseen uncertainty, and turbulence (chaos). Widely used project tools are network planning techniques (such as PERT, Critical Path Methods, Gantt Charts) and risk management (risk identification, prevention,...

The paper describes a typology of plants in multinational manufacturing companies. Four clusters of plants are identified, each with a distinct position in the multinational manufacturing network. It is shown that plants with different network roles also differ in terms of some plant characteristics, such as their strategic role, their focus and th...

Currently, there are three forces creating a more favourable background for western multinational companies to do new business in China by transferring new technology. First, growing overcapacity means China requires not traditional turnkey factories, but instead, technology which leads to innovation and improvement. Second, a changing attitude by...

Currently, there are three forces creating a more favourable background for western multinational companies to do new business in China by transferring new technology. First, growing overcapacity means China requires not traditional turnkey factories, but instead, technology which leads to innovation and improvement. Second, a changing attitude by...

The globalisation of the economic activity has dramatically increased the extent to which manufacturing is carried out and managed on an international scale. International manufacturing poses some specific challenges. These challenges are listed below: 1. What determines the architecture of the plant network: how many plants does one need? What kin...

Entre milieux universitaire et industriel, les mentalités sont très différentes à bien des égards. Ce qui ne facilite pas le passage de l'un à l'autre. Prendre conscience de ces disparités permet au moins d'envisager de passer le pas en connaissance de cause.

La notion de compétence de la firme a longtemps été assimilée, dans la littérature, à la disposition d'éléments spécifiques tels que les dotations en facteur ou encore la détention et les capacités d'accès à l'information. La compétence était ainsi considérée comme le résultat des efforts réalisés par une entreprise pour se constituer un capital hu...

Extrapolating from the results of a 10-year INSEAD Survey, Arnoud De Meyer offers some views on the future for manufacturing in Europe. The model on which the Survey was based indicates that competitive priorities and action plans in manufacturing changed over the 10-year period. Taking lessons from these, the author makes some `informed guesses' o...

As de‐localization, restructuring, rationalization, delayering and reengineering chip away at the number of jobs in manufacturing, is there still a future for manufacturing in Europe? And if so how does it look? Arnoud De Meyer presents the conclusions of empirical monitoring by INSEAD of Europe's largest manufacturers.

The product development process is one of the most widely studied activities in the firm. We should not be amazed by the attention paid to this process. Indeed innovation is essential for the survival of the organization, and the process through which one develops products is one of the most important ways to make the innovation task operational. M...

The planning stage of an innovation project has a great effect on the commercial performance of the project. During the “fuzzy front-end”, the organization formulates a concept of the product to be developed, and determines whether or not the organization will invest resources in the concrete development of the idea. The integration of R&D and mark...

Rudy Moenaert, William Souder, Arnoud De Meyer, and Dirk Deschoolmeester report the results of their study of forty technologically innovative Belgian companies to examine the interaction between marketing and R&D. They studied one commercially successful and one commercially unsuccessful technological product innovation project in each participati...

Rudy Moenaert, William Souder, Arnoud De Meyer, and Dirk Deschoolmeester report the results of their study of forty technologically innovative Belgian companies to examine the interaction between marketing and R&D. They studied one commercially successful and one commercially unsuccessful technological product innovation project in each participati...