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Drilling and routing are the only two conventional mechanical machining techniques used in the production of printed circuit boards. Unfortunately these operations are still often underestimated even though drilling, in particular, is just as important as the other processes involved in achieving the final quality of the finished board. The advantages and disadvantages of the various drilling techniques are discussed. This paper was originally presented at the First Printed Circuit World Convention held at the Cafe Royal, London in June, 1978.

The drilling and preparation of a hole in FR‐4 laminate prior to the deposition of electroless copper is considered in relation to the quality of soldering achieved on the finished printed circuit board. Data pertaining to the drill speed, drill feed, and stack position are presented and the effect of drilling temperature is demonstrated. The variability of laminate is discussed in relation to outgassing during soldering. Finally the importance of the post‐drilling treatment of the hole‐wall is shown. The relative effects of baking after drilling, ultrasonic cleaning and chemical treatments such as alkaline potassium permanganate are illustrated.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how soft lean practices moderate the performance effects of hard lean practices. The authors provide new evidence from the pharmaceutical industry, which is characterized by a highly regulated and technical environment and has been largely uncharted in the lean literature.

Based on a review of the literature, the authors define a set of soft and hard lean practices. The authors test the hypotheses using factor analysis and moderated hierarchical linear regression on a unique dataset containing survey data and real performance measures of 351 pharmaceutical plants.

The results show that soft lean practices can be both enabling and constraining. When management engages in performance measurement, visualisation and employee empowerment the relationship between hard lean practices and performance is positively moderated. On the other hand, when managers emphasise goal setting and work standardisation the performance outcomes are reduced.

Effective lean managers build organisational commitment by motivating other employees to implement lean. They use performance measurement, visualisation and employee empowerment to focus on the “why”. Less effective managers engage in commanding and micro-management. Such managers focus on the “what” by using practices like goal setting and work standardisation.

This article contributes to the literature on lean management by empirically testing the moderator-variable interaction effects between soft and hard lean practices. In addition, it adds new evidence from the important pharmaceutical industry.

The purpose of this study is to explore organizational enablers of frontline employees’ (FLEs) service-sales ambidexterity (SSA) in industrial firms expanding their digital service portfolios.

The authors conducted a qualitative study of five industrial firms pursuing digital service growth and, for this purpose, collected and analyzed interview data obtained from 50 service and sales managers and FLEs across three continents.

The authors identify and explain eight organizational enablers of digital service-sales ambidexterity (DSSA), operating at the macro, micro and meso levels.

Service and sales managers should use the identified organizational enablers to exploit the established service business and to explore new digital growth paths.

The study expands the prior understanding of SSA by advancing the concept of DSSA, unpacking its multilevel dynamics and operationalizing eight organizational enablers.

In this paper, the authors empirically investigate under which conditions production network management is effective to improve manufacturers' financial performance. For this, the authors explore contingencies between production networks and the three key dimensions of organizational environment.

A survey with senior managers was conducted for this research. The authors used a hierarchical regression analysis to test interaction effects and draw on follow-up interviews with chief operating officers (COOs) and senior managers to elaborate and explain the found associations.

Results indicate that manufacturers' financial performance is only associated with their network capability level if they operate in hostile competitive environments. In moderate competitive environments, improvements in the network capability level are not associated with greater financial performance. In particularly munificent environments, such production network upgrades are even associated with the opposite effect.

Results highlight in which organizational contexts upgrading production networks has positive performance implications and under which circumstances it is ineffective or even counterproductive.

The authors draw on unique survey data to add quantitative evidence to the predominantly conceptual and qualitative literature on global production networks. This is also one of the first studies to connect the topics of production networks and organizational environment.

This paper recognises that Government policy in the UK is increasingly moving toward greater inclusion of education in mental health (MH) recovery. This research will support this move by offering evidence of innovative practice involving service-users, HE curriculum delivery and research experiences, within MH.

This is the early stages of the first cycle of an action research model which uses participant led research, supported by HE, community and MH teams promoting positive MH and wellbeing.

Early findings will demonstrate how BeWEHL (Bettering Wellbeing, Education, Health and Lifestyle) has been effective at raising confidence, reducing clinical dependency but above all, raising aspirations for learning among all those service-users involved in this project.

While the outcomes of this research are very positive, and do show some significant, early potential for using HE as an intervention strategy for engaging service-users in additional learning, these findings are premised on small numbers and as such a bigger sample will be needed.

MH is poses significant challenges to retention and submissions. Equally, recruitment is, to a large extent, reliant on clinical teams posing dilemmas to ongoing student promotion.

This paper will be of interest to those working within widening access, MH, other researchers, service-users and others interested in or working within holistic care plans.

The purpose of this paper is to report the state‐of‐the‐art of servitization by presenting a clinical review of literature currently available on the topic. The paper aims to define the servitization concept, report on its origin, features and drivers and give examples of its adoption along with future research challenges.

In determining the scope of this study, the focus is on articles that are central and relevant to servitization within a wider manufacturing context. The methodology consists of identifying relevant publication databases, searching these using a wide range of key words and phrases associated with servitization, and then fully reviewing each article in turn. The key findings and their implications for research are all described.

Servitization is the innovation of an organisation's capabilities and processes to shift from selling products to selling integrated products and services that deliver value in use. There are a diverse range of servitization examples in the literature. These tend to emphasize the potential to maintain revenue streams and improve profitability.

Servitization does not represent a panacea for manufactures. However, it is a concept of significant potential value, providing routes for companies to move up the value chain and exploit higher value business activities. There is little work to date that can be used to help practitioners.

This paper provides a useful review of servitization and a platform on which to base more in‐depth research into the broader topic of service‐led competitive strategy by drawing on the work from other related research communities.