In many companies, warranty management functions are handled in isolation without the necessary focus on analyzing the impact of each function on discrete value chain functions such as manufacturing, quality, and services. In many such companies, the warranty management function is fragmented across financials, product design, manufacturing, quality and reliability, service chain, sales, and ma...

In the light of growing demand for individualized products, configuration systems are becoming increasingly important. Most interesting are configurators that can be accessed over the Internet. They can be used by sales representatives and customers independent of location and time. In this paper, a new electronic service for configuration, simulation and animation of manufacturing systems is c...

We explore the impact of geographically bounded intra-firm spillovers (internal agglomeration economies) and geographically bounded inter-firm spillovers (external agglomeration economies) on firms’ location strategies. Using data from the Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Business Database and the U.S. Cluster Mapping Project, we analyze organic expansions of biopharmaceutical firms (by both new es...

Mobile code is being championed as a solution to a plethora of software problems. This paper investigates whether Mobile Agents and Mobile Objects support improved system integration and agility in the manufacturing domain. We describe two systems built to support the Sales Order Process of a distributed manufacturing enterprise, using IBM's Aglets Software Development Kit. The Sales Order Proc...

We explore the impact of geographically bounded, intra-firm linkages (internal agglomerations) and geographically bounded, inter-firm linkages (external agglomerations) on firms’ location strategies. Using data from the Census Bureau’s Longitudinal Business Database, we analyze the locations of new establishments of biopharmaceutical firms in the U.S. in 1993–2005. We consider all activities in...

This paper presents the existing state of cooperation issues among European manufacturing firms. We have conducted a survey within several European countries and asked their manufacturing firms with at least 20 employees if they are keen to cooperate with other firms and other institutions in the field of R&D with universities and other research institutions, R&D with other firms (customers and...

For many manufacturing companies, after-sales service is an increasingly important part of the business and is more complex than manufacturing products. Unlike products it is not possible to produce services in advance and inventory these for future consumption. Instead an unpredictable event such as a machine failure triggers a need for manufacturing of parts for replacement and allocation of ...

After-sales services are important to manufacturing companies both as a source of income and as a source of gaining competitive advantage. Searching for new sources of value in the after-sale market is thus of importance for these companies since it could help them to attract customers. Manufacturing companies are now seeking innovative ways to develop after-sales services with the use of remot...

This research paper presents and discusses a manufacturing support system which supports not only maintenance services but also consulting services for manufacturing systems consisting of multi-vendor machine tools. In order to do this the system enables inter-enterprise collaboration between engineering companies and machine tool vendors. The manufacturing support system is called “After-Sales...

Theoretical models have been ambiguous on the relationship between industry competition and inventory holdings of manufacturing firms. Facing competition, on the one hand, firms may desire to hold more inventory to avoid losing sales to competitors; on the other hand, firms strive to improve inventory turns to control costs and stay competitive. Using U.S. Census data on manufacturing industrie...