REGAINING THE LEAD IN MANUFACTURING - DEVELOPMENT-PROJECTS - THE ENGINE OF RENEWAL

During the last decade, U.S. manufacturers have narrowed if not elimin ated the competitive gap between themselves and such foreign rivals as the Japanese and the Germans. But how can they take the lead and reta in it? What will it take to stay ahead? To answer those daunting quest ions, an ad hoc group of 27 academics and industry executives formed t he Manufacturing Vision Group in 1988. They studied development projec ts at Chaparral Steel, Digital Equipment, Eastman Kodak, Ford Motor, a nd Hewlett-Packard. The three articles in this package reveal what the y discovered. The first article points out how development projects ar e microcosms of an organization. And when designed and managed well, t hey generate powerful, distinctive capabilities as well as winning pro ducts or processes. The most successful projects combine seven key ele ments, which, when applied comprehensively, optimize development, fost er learning, and initiate change throughout an organization. Those ele ments are: core capabilities, guiding visions, organization and leader ship, ownership and commitment, ''pushing the envelope,'' prototypes, and integration. Digital's effort in the 1980s to develop high-density disk drives illustrates how a company can use a development project t o create not only a new product or process but also an important exper tise. And Chaparral's extraordinary creation of the steel industry's f irst horizontal caster demonstrates how attention to the seven element s pays off.