Innovation brings long-term survival

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Mar 21, 2007

Issue one of a quarterly email bulletin suggests some shortcuts to bring innovation within every manufacturer's reach.

However good manufacturers are at meeting quality, cost and delivery (QCD) targets, that won't be enough to make them competitive, says the first issue of a new e-zine from Cambridge industrial consultancy Cambashi.

"Excellence in managing QCD 'merely makes mediocre manufacturers good", according to Cambashi, the best-practice management and marketing consultants for IT in industry.

"Innovation is what makes good manufacturers great and equips them for long-term survival", says issue one of the quarterly email bulletin and goes on to suggest some shortcuts to bring innovation within every manufacturer's reach.

Cambashi says the e-zine, called e-Xpertise for Industry, is written for manufacturing readers who want pointers to the best way to adopt information and communications technology (ICT).

But it will contain thought-provoking articles on a much wider range of user topics.

In the first issue, for example, Cambashi Senior Partner Mike Evans takes a look at the construction industry, whose current state of introspection on materials, climate change and much else has many lessons for manufacturing.

e-Xpertise in Industry editor John Dwyer says "Manufacturers don't need more information - but they are crying out for analysis".

"The internet gives them access to too much information".

"The Cambashi quarterly e-zine - e-Xpertise for Industry - will penetrate the internet thicket to bring them the messages that, after more than 20 years researching the business reasons for using IT, Cambashi believes it knows how to discern".

"Cambashi knows about industry and the technology that, carefully applied, can make its processes so much more effective".

"And it knows how good technology and bad implementations can mix to give technology a bad name".

"The focus will be on business because our readers will be industrial managers interested in information technology's business Impact".

What are industry's business drivers?.

How do companies translate their response to these into business initiatives?.

How should middle managers interpret these initiatives?.

What manageable actions should they carry out and only then, what information technology will support those actions?.

"We believe information technology can be a force for good and we will encourage investment in appropriate forms of it but our analysis will be based strictly on realistic expectations of a return".

"We will be independent of any vendor and will not carry advertising or promotional material".

"Our readers can expect us to cover a wide variety of sectors from mining through manufacturing and construction to distribution and even some retail", he concludes.

The e-zine will have an international, not local, focus, says Cambashi Senior Partner Mike Evans.

"We will not condemn outsourcing to low-cost countries, for example, preferring to balance the benefits to employees in the outsourced country against the costs in terms of service levels in the outsourcing country".

e-Xpertise for Industry is Cambashi's second e-zine.

It joins e-Xpertise in Industry, whose 29th issue has just been published.