I have held off for some time in responding to this post so that I could
read a book titled "What Will Be", by Michael Dertouzos, Director of MIT
Lab for Computer Science. For years I have thought about the work of
production workers and service workers being different. Dr. Drucker has
some things to say on this subject. Service workers are knowledge workers
and their needs are different. Production work is discrete work whereas
service work is continuous. I have given some presentations based on
those assumptions. In this book, for the first time, I was introduced to
the notion that production work and service work are the same. The books
is not directly on the point requested but I would suggest it as a place
to begin.
Tom Burke
toburke@cts.com
> From: Walter Derzko <wd@itrc.on.ca>
> Date: Tuesday, April 08, 1997 9:51 PM
>
> Dear List members,
>
> An interesting point came up the other day in discussions with some
> business associates.
>
> Are the generic components of a typical product innovation and
> development
> process in a manufacturing firm the same as the service innovation and
> development process in an organization that provides just services to its
> customers (such as a bank, insurance company, school/college or
> government
> department) or are the two processes inherently different.
>
> N.B.
>
> I'm not looking at process innovation (how we do things at work) here,
> only product/service innovation (what we produce as an end product) (ie.
> the concept development stage, planning, product or service development
> process, reliance on team work, ramping up to production or to service
> delivery, use of designers etc.)
>
> Which components should /are similar and which should be /are different ?
--"Tom Burke" <toburke@cts.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>