Designing a manufacturing network entails devising and managing flows of innovation and know-how—not just determining what to produce and where—and organizing the resulting logistics flows.

Note: Older EBF articles are not currently online. I'm not sure if this is temporary or permanent. If you click you will be taken to the Archive.org site to find an archived copy.

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This article argues that critical path thinking (CPM, PERT, Gantt chart) is not appropriate where project goals are poorly defined. Contingency thinking is better.

In today's complex global manufacturing environment, managers face tough questions. What's the best way to implement integrative strategies for plant networks? How is know-how created and transferred? Drawing on in-depth case studies, Professors Ann Vereecke, Roland Van Dierdonck and Arnoud De Meyer create a typology of plants in global manufacturing networks, offering both technical analysis and practical advice.

It is common for projects to miss budgets, schedules and opportunities, in spite of the heroic efforts of the project manager to keep things on track. There is a need for the project management tool-kit to expand beyond task management. Professors Arnoud De Meyer, Christoph Loch and Michael Pich classify the associated and often-neglected uncertainty, and they suggest alternative techniques for project management, depending on the situation.