Robots need this flexibility now that production managers are having to cope with increasingly varied product lines in their factories.
In the 21st century production managers have replaced wildcatters.
FORBES: Does Energy Fit In A Mining Company? Early Signs Suggest No For Freeport McMorRan
Managers tout the Chery Production System, or CPS, which is modeled after the vaunted Toyota Production System, but the factory lacks the clockwork efficiency of a Toyota plant.
Managers tout the Chery Production System, or CPS, which is modeled after the vaunted Toyota (nyse: TM - news - people ) Production System, but the factory lacks the clockwork efficiency of a Toyota plant.
At one plant, which made part of the fuselage, he asked managers what was keeping their production line from moving.
The firm's managers say investments in easing production bottlenecks and infrastructure (such as a coal port and railways) is helping them to reduce costs, which are falling by close to 10% a year.
Mr. Ershaghi, the USC professor, visited Beijing last July at his former student's request to lecture Sinopec managers and engineers on shale-gas production.
So the country's oil managers and their military helpers desperately need to revive production.
The current mess has its origins in the late 1990s, when then chairman Mark Moody-Stuart, instead of beefing up exploration and production, cut cap-ex and dismissed thousands of seasoned managers and engineers.
But oil giant Shell, which accounts for about half of Nigerian oil production, said shipments were continuing "undisrupted", as senior managers took over posts from striking workers.
But Ms Casey soon discovered a big problem: Mattel's official sales forecasts were so high that managers, who were meant to use them to plan production, routinely ignored the numbers.
During the workshop, the Senegalese radio managers will also discuss their training needs in terms of radio production.
Similar incentive plans reappeared in early twentieth-century factories, with managers dangling the promise of cash rewards if their workers reached certain production levels.
FORBES: The Messy Link Between Slave Owners and Modern Management
The result has been a loss of much of the country's production capacity, both in the private sector and in the petroleum sector, where a number of workers and managers were fired after a strike in 2003, she said.
CNN: Venezuela's vice president sworn in as interim president
应用推荐