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The Japanese industrial challenge is well‐known. As a consequence, study of the Japanese management approach has become a very popular subject. In this article Ludo Gelders highlights some aspects of the Japanese production management approach he observed during a recent Japanese study tour.

Approaches maintenance management in a systematic way so as to achieve its business objectives. From a managerial point of view, this so‐called object/objective‐oriented maintenance management (OOMM) is an integral process of asset (equipment) management with behavior‐based maintenance (BBM) as a major element. Within the OOMM concept, the objective‐approach focuses on the managing of the maintenance processes so as to achieve the business objectives, and the object‐approach emphasizes the object (asset or equipment) and the behavioral failures. Furthermore, combined together, the two approaches reflect the basic characteristics of the maintenance process. Also, both sides affect and influence each other, and are inseparable within OOMM. BBM addresses the monitoring and controlling of the technical and economic behavior of a piece of equipment in two ways.

A literature review, confirmed by in‐depth interviews in industry, indicated a high level of reluctance to implement horizontal collaboration in business. One of the main reasons is the lack of a strategic decision support framework for the implementation of horizontal collaboration. An appropriate feasibility or fitness test could be helpful here. Two companies strategically ready to work together should first test whether any insurmountable practices (e.g. difference in culture) inhibit the collaboration. If such practices are present, the collaborative initiative will probably be a waste of time and effort. This paper therefore aims to present a method to check the strategic fit.

By means of a general literature study, 300 performance indicators were collected. In a next step, they were reduced to 58 key elements by means of a focused literature study on partnerships and eight in‐depth case studies in Belgian industry. Metrics have been assigned to each of these elements using the Supply Chain Operation Reference Model (SCOR). The elements are then combined into sub‐criteria and criteria. Furthermore, the elements (both qualitative and quantitative) have been integrated through a multi‐criteria decision‐making method, namely analytic hierarchy process (AHP). Three different alternatives are considered: no‐collaboration, informal collaboration, or partnership. By means of pairwise comparison of all criteria, sub‐criteria and elements, an indication of the preferred form of collaboration is obtained and an improvement analysis per element can be performed.

The paper suggests and tests a method for evaluating the strategic fit, incorporating key performance indicators.

The research assumes integrity of all partners.

This paper presents a straightforward tool that demonstrates how to measure the strategic fit of inventory pooling in a horizontal collaboration between different organizations.

The paper provides valuable information on measuring the strategic fit in horizontal collaboration initiatives.

States that companies are moving more and more towards becoming learning organizations. It is expected that in the future the ability to learn will be a core competence and an essential competitive element of successful companies. Today, more and more techniques are used to enable companies to learn, e.g. performance benchmarking, the facts and figures culture of TQM, etc. As a consequence registration tools are an essential step in the process of learning. Describes the authors’ experience with the development of models to register all kind of disturbances in production systems.

In the last 10‐15 years rapid changes in the world along with globalization have had great effects on almost all countries and enterprises. This is especially the case for companies faced with international competition. Also, these enterprises have had to take notice of scarce resources becoming more so. All these developments force companies to make decisions in light of their strategic positions, and these developments directly or indirectly affect hotels. They increasingly find themselves in types of competition previously unknown: their customers are demanding more and more for their money and these demands can also be noted in the sector of information technology. Hotels must increasingly make use of the new technologies, and at this juncture total quality management attempts may spell out the decisive differences between the hotels and their ultimate survival. In this study the role of re‐engineering is taken into consideration within the scope of total quality management. The goal of this study is to propose a new process model for a five‐star hotel.