The Global Brain by Satish Nambisan and Mohanbir Sawney

Books reviewed in this issue:

• ? The Global Brain
• ? Do It Wrong Quickly: How the Web Changes the Old Marketing Rules
• ? Reinventing Project Management: The Diamond Approach to Successful Growth and Innovation
• ? Selling Blue Elephants: How to Make Great Products that People Want before They Even Know They Want Them

     

The Innovation Manual: Integrated Strategies and Practical Tools for Bringing Value Innovation to the Market by David Midgley

Books reviewed in this issue:

• ? The Innovation Manual: Integrated Strategies and Practical Tools for Bringing Value Innovation to the Market
• ? Sensory Marketing
• ? Agile Product Management with Scrum: Creating Products that Customers Love

     

Build an Industry Hot Rod: The Nuts and Bolts of Leaving Competitors in the Dust by Marvin L. Patterson

Books reviewed in this issue:

• ? Build an Industry Hot Rod: The Nuts and Bolts of Leaving Competitors in the Dust
• ? Innovating at the Top: How Global CEOs Drive Innovation for Growth and Profit
• ? Determinants of Innovative Behaviour: A Firm's Internal Practices and Its External Environment

     

Hot Spots: Why Some Teams,Workplaces and Organizations Buzz with Energy—and Others Don't by Lynda Gratton

Books reviewed in this issue:

• ? Hot Spots: Why Some Teams, Workplaces and Organizations Buzz with Energy—and Others Don't
• ? Cracking the Ad Code
• ? Innovation Tournaments: Creating and Selecting Exceptional Opportunities

     

X-Teams: How To Build Teams That Lead, Innovate, and Succeed by Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman

I am retiring from the profession and from this position as your book review editor; the very capable Donovan Hardenbrook will be your next editor. I think we have worked out a seamless transition, but Donovan will doubtless bring his energy and innovation to the position. These nearly five years as editor have been a lot of work but a great deal of satisfaction too. This position is the best one in the world for keeping on top of the newest thinking in product development, for being able to see the latest books as—or even before—they are published, and for learning by editing the work of knowledgeable reviewers critically. Some statistics: In nearly five years, we received 560 books for review, reviewed 144 of them, processed 659 review drafts, and discarded about 430 books (mostly to The Prisoners Literature Project). A more modern metric: I received 3,372 e‐mails about book reviews (and probably sent a similar number). Of course, I've had much help, which I would like to acknowledge. Tony Di Benedetto, the journal editor, was a constant source of encouragement and support, and Beebe Nelson, the former book review editor, backed me up. Our 41 active reviewers did the real work, and some of them are prolific reviewers: Mark Hart, George Castellion, Ruediger Klein, and Gerald Mulenburg each reviewed 10 or more books. Kristi Bennett, our copyeditor, has done a wonderful job of ensuring the consistency of these offerings. Finally, we are indebted to about 70 book publishers (technically, imprints) that supplied the review copies gratis. Books reviewed in this issue:

• ? X‐Teams: How To Build Teams That Lead, Innovate, and Succeed
• ? Edison on Innovation: 102 Lessons in Creativity for Business and Beyond
• ? Something Really New: Three Simple Steps to Creating Truly Innovative Products
• ? Smart Isn't Enough: Lessons from a Work Performance Coach
• ? The Power of Mobility: How Your Business Can Compete and Win in the Next Technology Revolution

     

The New Age of Innovation: Driving Cocreated Value through Global Networks by C. K. Prahalad and M. S. Krishnan

Books reviewed in this issue:

• ? The New Age of Innovation: Driving Cocreated Value through Global Networks.
• ? Generation Blend: Managing across the Technology Age Gap
• ? Conquering Innovation Fatigue: Overcoming the Barriers to Personal and Corporate Success

     

The Art of Invention: The Creative Process of Discovery and Design Steven J. Paley. Amherst,NY: Prometheus Books, 2010. 236 pages. US$20.00.

Books reviewed in this issue:

• The Art of Invention: The Creative Process of Discovery and Design
• Enterprise Excellence: A Practical Guide to World‐Class Competition
• Operations Rules: Delivering Customer Value through Flexible Operations
• Taming Change with Portfolio Management: Unify Your Organization, Sharpen Your Strategy, and Create Measurable Value

     

Knowledge Matters: Technology,Innovation, and Entrepreneurship in Innovation Networks and Knowledge ClustersEdited by Elias G. Carayannis and Piero Formica . Hampshire,UK: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008. 267 + xix pages. US$90.00.

Books reviewed in this issue:

• Knowledge Matters: Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship in Innovation Networks and Knowledge Clusters
• Future Search: Getting the Whole System in the Room for Vision, Commitment, and Action
• Take Charge Product Management: Time‐Tested Tips, Tactics, and Tools for the New or Improved Product Manager

     

Guidance on developing safety performance indicators

This article summarizes a process for developing safety performance indicators. This is a topic of great importance for the measurement of the effectiveness of our PSM systems. The PSM is the OSHA regulation that covers companies in the United States that was issued in the year 1992. Since that time companies in the process industries have made great strides in implementing PSM systems. An important question is “How much progress have we made in actually reducing the number and severity of process events?” Other countries were also concerned about the effectiveness of their programs to address chemical accidents. In response to these concerns, the OECD published the documents described in this article. One of these documents sets out a safety performance indicator process that allows a company to:

• assess whether it is implementing appropriate chemical safety programs and policies,
• evaluate whether these programs and policies are achieving their desired objectives, and
• help determine the extent to which such programs and policies are making a difference.

This will allow a company to identify whether there is appropriate emphasis on different aspects of safety management and provide insights needed for setting priorities for future investment of resources. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 2009     

Mitigation systems

The workshop was organized through the presentations in an attempt to achieve the following goals:

• Review the state-of-the-art of mitigation techniques.
• Establish a preference order for mitigation systems.
• Define the tools available to determine the relative benefit of various mitigation systems.
• Identify future research needs to enhance or improve mitigation systems.

     

Guidelines for hazard evaluation procedures: Second edition

This article presents an abstract of important additions and revisions to the Guidelines for Hazard Evaluation Procedures published by CCPS in 1985. It includes:

• An outline of the background and purpose of the project
• An overview of the importance of hazard identification and evaluation studies, including benefits and limitations
• An overview of the new chapters
• Discussion of Hazard Identification Methods and results

     

An overview of exposures and exposure control in the ethylene oxide producer and ethoxylation industries

This paper presents the results of an industry survey that was sponsored by the Ethylene Oxide Industry Council (EOIC). The EOIC operates as a special program of the Chemical Manufacturers Association. The members of EOIC account for over 85 percent of domestic production of EtO and cover a broad range of EtO users, including ethoxylators and sterilizers. The survey was done to collect current information in anticipation of responding to a proposed OSHA rulemaking for a short-term exposure limit for EtO. Specifically, the study was designed to collect information on the following:

• 1. History of the establishment of company EtO exposure guidelines.
• 2. Current EtO workplace exposure monitoring practices, capabilities and methods.
• 3. Current workplace exposure levels: Eight hour and short-term.
• 4. Engineering control, respirator, and ancillary costs for compliance with the 1.0 Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) and projected costs for compliance with a 5.0 ppm or 10.0 ppm Short–term Exposure Limit (STEL).

     

Initiating events and independent protection layers

Layer of protection analysis (LOPA) is a semiquantitative tool for analyzing and assessing process risk. The tool has grown greatly in popularity and usefulness since the publication of the first CCPS/AIChE guidebook on the subject, Layer of Protection Analysis, Simplified Process Risk Assessment (LOPA). This article is a summary of a new CCPS guideline book that includes the following:

• Initiating events (IEs).
• Independent protection layers (IPLs).
• Criteria for identifying the value of each prospective IE and prospective IPL.
• Example IE and IPL data.

This book is a necessary reference for those applying the LOPA methodology. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog, 2009     

Improving process safety by addressing the human element

Celanese had several process safety incidents and near misses in 1996. Although there were several root causes, this article will address only one of them; human error. The system which was developed by Celanese to improve this human element is the conduct of operations system. The conduct of operations system has improved process safety performance of the human element by focusing on three operational areas: training, procedures, and general operations. Conduct of operations is a proactive approach to improve the current practices, improve the support systems and the behavior of the operator. The benefits include the following:

• Consistent application of training and procedures
• Reduction in human error, and
• Less process safety incidents

This article will describe the need for and the content of conduct of operations system as implemented by Celanese. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog, 2009     

Auditing process safety management in four levels

An audit must have a defined structure, an understood purpose, and enough details to assure completeness. It should be divided into discrete levels with specific topics so that the auditor can fully identify and understand the degree to which each facility or company complies with the requirements. Each of these levels should also be designed to analyze different types of information, implementation actions, and infrastructure. This article proposes and discusses a four-level approach to conduct a comprehensive and complete audit. The four levels are as follows:

• 1 Recognition and acknowledgment of the need to comply with a specific set of rules or regulations,
• 2 An implementation strategy and infrastructure,
• 3 Evidence of compliance, and
• 4 Quality assessments.

The content and purpose of each level as well as the interaction between levels is discussed and explained in this article. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog, 2009     

“Engineering Economics Jeopardy!” Mobile App for University Students

This article presents the “Engineering Economics Jeopardy!” mobile app development process and college students’ satisfaction assessment of the developed app. The app includes a general tools E-book, calculator, reference tables, conceptual questions, and calculation problems in an engaging fashion. The E-book is a summary of the key concepts of engineering economics. The calculator provides functions to solve basic engineering economics problems with formulas. The tables allow the users to compute discrete compound interest factors. Through this Jeopardy! game, users can compete with two virtual opponents that have artificial intelligence to answer conceptual questions and calculation problems. Different sets of problems range from the simple questions on the time value of money to more complex concepts, such as sensitivity analysis, Monte Carlo simulation, and supply–demand equilibrium. This app is intended to give students more opportunity to learn and practice concepts of engineering economics whenever and wherever they want using their mobile devices. Accomplishments of this work include the following:

• “Engineering Economics Jeopardy!” mobile app has been developed and distributed.

• Five thousand people have downloaded the app so far.

• The effectiveness of the developed app has been researched with 116 college students who were enrolled in engineering economics courses across two semesters.

     

TECHNICAL NOTE: THE FORMULA APPROXIMATION FOR THE OPTIMAL CYCLE TIME OF THE NET PRESENT VALUE

This article proposes the best bounds for e^?x ?l+x subject to some constraints. With these bounds for e^?x ?l+x, the better bounds for the optimal cycle time can be developed such that the bisection algorithm locates the optimal cycle time more accurately. Finally, an example is given to illustrate all results obtained by this article.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Labour Law and the Community: Perspectives for the 1980s, edited by Lord Wedderburn and W.T. Murphy Picketing: Industrial Disputes, Tactics and the Law, by Peggy Kahn, Norman Lewis, Rowland Livock and Paul Wiles The Law of Industrial Relations, by J G Riddall Industrial Productivity, by Michael M. Gruneberg and David J. Oborne Psychology and Industrial Productivity: A reader, edited by Michael M. Gruneberg and David J. Oborne The Degradation of Work? edited by Stephen Wood The Development of the Labour Process in Capitalist Societies, by Craig Littler The Shopfloor Politics of New Technology, by Barry Wilkinson Exploring Participation by Paul Bate and Iain Mangham Lost Managers: Supervisors in Industry and Society, by John Child and Bruce Partridge Soviet Trade Unions, by Blair A. Ruble     

Economics of Supply of Canada's Military Manpower

Three key generalizations emerge from this study:

• 1 Economic factors can, in certain cases, be important in attracting applicants to other ranks of the Canadian armed forces. Sensitivity to the state of the civilian economy would appear to be greatest for the air force, where the average quality level of applicants in the labor force is highest. The impact of relative wages, as measured here, is substantially larger than that of unemployment.
• 2 Traditional and cultural considerations are also relevant. Previous historical and sociological research is supported regarding Quebec's negative attitudes towards the navy. Attitudes towards the army are less clear, as data shortcomings prevent precise interpretation of the regional dummy variables. There are also distinct seasonal patterns in application rates to each service.
• 3 Important differences in attitudes and quality of applicants were found among army, navy, and air force recruits. With the operational unification of Canada's three services into a single armed force in 1968, implications for recruitment remain an open question.

     

Localisation of Japanese subsidiaries in Southeast Asia

The success story of Japanese firms, both in their home country and their overseas subsidiaries, has been the focus of comparative management research in the 1970s and early 1980s. Several scholars attributed the impressive productivity gains in Japanese industries to the basic principles of Japanese management. Further, they advocated the adoption of these principles by American and European businesses to solve employee morale and productivity problems. However, in recent years, the validity of the “happy worker” hypothesis in explaining the effectiveness of Japanese management has been seriously questioned. In fact, the results of several empirical studies indicate that Japanese firms are facing manpower management problems both at home and in their overseas subsidiaries. The main purpose of this article is to identify and discuss the Japanese management problems of overseas subsidiaries, based on several empirical studies of Japanese overseas subsidiaries undertaken by the authors of this article and other scholars during the last 17 years (1968 to 1985). These studies are:

Localisation Problems of Japanese Subsidiaries Overseas: A Comparative Study in Southeast-Asian Countries.

A comparative study of American, Japanese and local firms in Taiwan.

A comparative study of American, European and Japanese multinationals' subsidiaries in Brazil, Peru, India, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand.

A comparative study of American, German, and Japanese multinations in the United States, Western European countries, Australia, and Japan.

A comparative study of upper-level Japanese and American managers of subsidiaries of Japanese firms in the United States.

A comparative study of subsidiaries of American and Japanese multinationals in Singapore.

An intensive case study of a Japanese subsidiary in Australia.