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The purpose of this paper is to analyze lean strategic practices being implemented in manufacturing facilities throughout Pennsylvania and West Virginia and identify the difficulty in implementing those lean practices.

A skip logic questionnaire was developed into multiple sections for analysis; demographics of respondents, identification of the knowledge and practice of lean methods, interpretation of lean application, strategic direction of lean methods, measurements of expertise, and difficulties for practicing lean. The questionnaire was sent to 327 manufacturing facilities where 51 usable responses were collected for the study.

Lean manufacturing is a widely recognized and practiced business philosophy as a significant percentage of manufacturers have implemented some variation of practice. However, the extent of knowledge does not mirror awareness. The application of lean manufacturing practices is not readily appropriate for every company, but adopting the concept of customer-focussed waste reduction to maximize value can be universally applied as waste reduction was the most prominent practice pursued. Lean practitioners found that poka-yoke and installing new process equipment have the highest degree of benefits from implementation while 5S and eliminating waste were the least difficult practices to implement. In general, the management personnel of the companies have an influential effect on lean manufacturing pursuance. This is illustrated by the fact of high agreement between facilities that resistance to change from employees is the most prominent difficulty for implementation followed by limited technical knowledge of lean manufacturing at operational and conceptual levels.

The research findings are from a subset of manufacturing companies in Pennsylvania and West Virginia and may not represent all of the companies on a national level. The results must be interpreted in the context of the data acquisition approach due to the extent of the sample size involved, the procedure for how data were collected, and assuming that each lean strategic practice has the same weight to calculate the facility lean index.

The results provide insight about the effect of facility size and years of lean practicing for various lean strategic practices. The most beneficial and least difficult lean strategies, their implementation level, and the real challenges for implementing lean were also identified to help both lean practitioner and non-practitioner for the lean journey.

The research investigates current lean strategic practices pursued by manufacturers throughout Pennsylvania and West Virginia and identifies obstacles to implementation of lean practices. Lean manufacturing is widely sought after as a continuous improvement program, but success is divided. This study characterizes lean manufacturing comprehension while identifying knowledge areas of strengths and deficiencies. There lacks an established structure for lean practices to pursue. Therefore, this study provides manufacturers a measure for comparing their position for refined decision making.

Insufficient investment in facilities management organizations lead to postponement of major repairs and replacements of facilities. Lack of centralized information within an organization on the assessment of deficiencies and conditions in the facilities causes these projects to be carried out at the cost of critical replacements and repairs. This paper aims to describe a facilities condition assessment methodology and a tool.

In this paper, the physical condition and maintenance deficiencies of heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) type of equipment are assessed at its component level using failure checkpoints. The existing conditions of six cooling towers located at West Virginia University were assessed at the component level and an overall condition score was generated by the tool.

The tool helped to assess checkpoints on the components and identify the potential risk component and its impact.

When facilities managers initiate this structured assessment methodology based on a periodic frequency, the facilities availability and life is maximized apart from reducing overall risk.

The contributions of this paper include the use of a common and comprehensive methodology for HVAC physical condition assessments and risk assessment of component failure impact.

This paper eliminates the most evident scoring limitations in the literature such as “equal numbers or ties,” “summation of lower priority scores exceeding the higher priority score,” and the need for a “cost estimator.” A unique formula was determined for the scoring technique.

The main objective in writing this paper and conducting this research is to enhance the productivity in manufacturing operations by making them cost effective.

This paper presents a target‐costing system and model developed for the turning operation and it has a user interface designed in Microsoft Visual Basic® with a database developed by using Microsoft Access®. An algorithm is developed to apply the concepts of target‐costing that selects the machining parameters and then determines the machining cost. A geometric programming model (Gopalakrishnan and Al‐Khayyal) was used in the development of this system.

The research determined that target‐costing models can be developed for the manufacturing industry and can be implemented in realistic manufacturing environment. The research also showcased the utility of the target‐costing model in terms of the underlying detailed system level parameters.

The research focuses on one manufacturing process but can be extended to other manufacturing processes and business cost and profit centers for providing overall and enhanced benefits at the corporate levels.

The research details the development of a model that has been validated using practical shop floor data, hence implying its application in a wide variety of situations.

The original value of the paper lies in identifying the critical parameters and modeling approach towards target‐costing.

Sharing services increasingly extends beyond intraorganizational concentration of service delivery. Organizations have started to promote cooperation across their boundaries to deal with strategic tensions in their value ecosystem, moving beyond traditional outsourcing. This chapter addresses two research questions geared to the challenge of interorganizational shared services (ISS): why would organizations want to get and remain involved in ISS? And: what are the implications of ISS for (inter)organizational value creation?

The conceptual chapter reviews literature pertaining to ISS from public, commercial, and nongovernmental sectors. ISS is understood as a multistakeholder organizational innovation. In order to analyze ISS and conduct empirical research, we developed a taxonomy and research framework.

The chapter shows how ISS can be positioned in value chains, distinguishing vertical, horizontal, and hybrid ISS. It outlines ISS implications for developing business models, structures, and relationships. Success factors and barriers are presented that epitomize the dynamic interplay of organizational autonomy and interorganizational dependence.

The research framework offers conceptual ideas for theoretical and empirical work. Researchers involved in ISS studies may adopt strategic, strategic innovation, and organizational innovation perspectives.

ISS phases are distinguished to focus innovation management — initiation, enactment, and evaluation. Furthermore, insights are provided into processes and interventions aimed at making ISS a success for participating organizations.

Cross-sectoral perspective on ISS; taxonomy of ISS; research framework built on organization and strategic management literature.

Open innovation is an issue that has aroused great interest in recent years. The need to create an environment that facilitates the creation of ideas is essential for the implementation of a series of changes in organizational practices and routines that lead to the launch of new products. However, due to the more behavioral nature and the lesser externalization of these changes introduced in the company's internal processes, how this process occurs has not been studied in depth. The objective of this study is to analyze the effect of an open innovation climate on both incremental and radical product innovation. Moreover, it specifically analyzes the mediating role played by hidden innovation in this relationship.

The methodology used in this study was based on a survey of 213 Spanish SMEs, subsequently applying the structural equation methodology to contrast the results.

The results indicate that open innovation climate offers significant competitive advantages to SMEs. First, the open innovation climate in SMEs favorably influences product innovation (both incremental and radical). Secondly, it is observed that hidden innovations are essential to obtain product innovations. Finally, evidence of the mediating effect of hidden innovation has been obtained.

Although the literature often focuses on visible innovation, materialized in product development, this study demonstrates the importance of other types of innovations that are necessary to launch new products. This is especially relevant for SMEs that, with limited resources, must be creative enough to involve their personnel in introducing changes that will lead to new products. This paper attempts to strengthen the previous literature on hidden innovation by contributing to the understanding of how SMEs improve their innovative processes. However, the study has the limitations derived from using a single informant to obtain data, using subjective-type scales and being a cross-sectional research.

Managers of SMEs involved in innovation processes should favor the creation of an open innovation climate and invest in organizational innovation. Governments should promote policies to support hidden and open innovation.

The main interest of this work is based on the importance of hidden innovation for the development of innovations. This study shows how organizations must make a series of organizational changes prior to the implementation of more visible innovations materialized in products. For this task, the creation of a favorable climate for the development of new ideas becomes a fundamental task. On the other hand, this study has focused on SMEs, which tend to have fewer means for the development of the right conditions for innovation and are often more neglected by scientific research.

The purpose of the study has been to fill the gap detected in the literature and to analyze whether the application of management of R&D in accordance with UNE 166002:2021 allows companies to obtain higher product innovation and better performance, specifically incremental and radical product innovations.

The population used in this study included Spanish manufacturing organizations that were active, had more than 50 employees according to the SABI. The information was collected through a structured questionnaire previously tested using a company specializing in the sector under the supervision of the authors. A total of 1,154 companies were randomly contacted in order to reach an acceptable number of 225 valid questionnaires. The data analysis has been carried out with structural equation methodology.

The results obtained with a sample of 225 companies show that the application of this standard for innovation management promotes the development of new products with incremental and radical changes, and improves business performance. It has also been found that incremental and radical product innovations mediate the relationship between this standard and performance.

Firstly, the survey is only addressed to the company's operations manager. Secondly, the sample used is cross-sectional, whereas innovation management implies a broad implementation process.

Managers must know that radical and incremental product innovation can improve the company's operational performance. And the most direct implication of this work is that, those companies that are committed to the development of innovations should seriously consider the application of the principles incorporated in Standard 166,002, as an instrument that improves the results of innovation in the organization. Since this SIMS promotes both types of innovations, it improves results directly and indirectly through these product innovations.

The existing literature indicates that no empirical study has focused on the benefits of this SIMSs for innovation and BP. This paper fills this gap detected in the literature and analyzes the results of the implementation of this standard on incremental and radical product innovations and business performance.

The purpose of this paper is to identify key social medial channels which pharmaceutical firms need to consider when desiring to understand consumer behavior, build, maintain and proactively manage relationships. Also, it proposes the application of analytic hierarchy process (AHP) sensitivity analysis algorithm to test the stability or robustness of the priority ranking. Specifically, this paper leverages performance sensitivity analysis to evaluate how small changes (perturbation) in the major objectives of the pharmaceutical relationship marketing (PRM) tactics within the social media environment will influence the ranking of the alternative course of actions.

This paper used AHP-based questionnaire survey to evaluate the relative importance of factors accounting for PRM and the impact of social media channels. The major objectives and the alternative strategies used were from literature reviewed. Interviews with senior managers were insightful and helpful in the wording, content and format of the questionnaire.

Customer engagement is the most important PRM tactic, followed by communication and trust. The performance sensitivity analysis carried out on the PRM tactics showed that the ranking associated with social media channel options remained robust or insensitive to small perturbations.

The data procured for this paper were based on one focal pharmaceutical firm. Convincing the same to grant an interview and late responding to the questionnaire was a great challenge.

Social media impact on pharmaceutical marketing relationship is important for pharmaceutical marketers. PRM bodes well with the social media environment. Pharmaceutical industry can build and maintain relationships with consumers through social media. Firms that leverage social media to enhance their PRM tactics will be viewed favorably in terms of trust, transparency, openness and honesty. The results provide pharmaceutical marketing managers with insightful and valuable information with respect to the role or social media impact on the PRM. The AHP model, objectives and their relative importance provide valuable information for managers on how to monitor the values that matters to customers the most.

This paper is one of the very few on the PRM and perhaps the first that examines social impact leveraging the AHP model. In addition, this paper contributes to the relationship marketing literature by leveraging a multi-criteria decision-making algorithm to prioritize the most important factors accounting for the PRM strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to expose the impact of innovation and patent registration, as a strategy that contributes to business success in the current competitive and globalized market conditions.

This paper presents a study on the innovation and contribution of the patent registry in the growth of economic sales of 1,746 companies in the Colombian manufacturing sector, whose applied methodology was a statistical correlation analysis and a binary logistic regression.

The results reveal a positive relationship among incremental product innovations with the achievement of sales success, although it is evident that patent registration negatively influences business success as a factor in innovation.

This study allows organizations to understand the importance of developing innovation processes and patent registration as a competitive factor that drives sales growth and success.