Twenty articles from the "Harvard Business Review" discuss manufacturing strategy, organizational requirements, performance measurements, and investments in new technology.

The past decade has witnessed a rebirth in the competitive landscape of manufacturing. From a global environment of rapidly changing consumer tastes and technologies, a group of aggressive and highly competent industrial competitors has emerged. No longer can companies build a manufacturing advantage around standard designs and mass production or products that contain an "acceptable percentage" of defects. Managers everywhere now share a strategic imperative to pursue "world-class" productivity, quality, and flexibility in manufacturing. Organizations cannot compete in the global marketplace without manufacturing capabilities that match or exceed those of the best in the world. In Manufacturing Renaissance, the editors have gathered 20 articles from the Harvard Business Review on manufacturing strategy and practice - all published as intense global industrial competition has forced a reexamination of many long-held beliefs about manufacturing and its role in the modern enterprise. The contributions included in this volume - beginning historically with Wickham Skinner's classic "The Focused Factory" - have profoundly influenced the theory and practice of manufacturing and will continue to guide the future transformation of manufacturing management. Manufacturing Renaissance offers lessons for developing strategic manufacturing capabilities drawn from the experiences of leading-edge companies and covers a wide range of critical issues. Peter Drucker both describes and predicts the shift of manufacturing from an isolated collection of work stations to a system integrated with the rest of the organization's functions. Robert Hayes and Kim Clark illuminate key managerial tools for increasingproductivity that are based on reducing manufacturing complexity and confusion, as well as on a commitment to organization-wide learning.