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2006-629: ORGANIZATIONAL EFFICIENCY

Abstract

The motivation of engineers, and other technical professionals, includes two significant factors: enhanced, personal career development, and, expanded responsibility in their firms. Leadership of continuous improvement, in the search for productivity and organizational efficiency, can support these two ambitions. Organizational Efficiency is gaining interest because of global competition. Not only are firms concerned with outsourcing, but each technical professional is in personal competition with those at the other end of the wire by which work is sent to low-cost, global locations. We are restructuring our Engineering Management Program at Santa Clara, to give greater emphasis to productivity improvement leadership, in order to improve our students’ global, competitive, skills.

The Global Economy

The forces that have created the productivity challenge include:

•Instant global communications eliminating barriers of distance.

•Rapid rates of change in the marketplace which frequently require obtaining knowledge about specific global location marketing needs, which can then be incorporated into products or services, appropriate for that location.

•The increased importance of creative individuals to utilize new technology in order to provide a continuous flow of new products and services.

• Increased organizational adaptability, and speed of response, is required to respond to competing organizations, in order to gain market share.

•Increased complexity of problems requiring collaborative expertise of groups working with greater synergy.

•Accelerated creativity and innovation allows firms to pull ahead of their competitors.

•Rising educational levels throughout the world, especially at the university level, is supporting the rise in global competitors. At one time, the U.S., Europe, and Japan had these markets to themselves.

•New kinds of leadership are required for knowledge-intensive firms who are in global competition, and who employ globally dispersed knowledge-workers.

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Parden, R. (2006, June), Organizational Efficiency Paper presented at 2006 Annual Conference & Exposition, Chicago, Illinois. 10.18260/1-2--353