Directions in technology and best management practice for the year 2000

Learning from history is always a valuable starting point when considering directions for future action. Never has this been more true than in the application of technology to manufacturing business over the last 25 years. On the one hand we have seen technology racing ahead at such a pace and in an apparently uncontrolled manner. On the other hand when we look around us we see the corpses of enthusiast-driven technology investments reflecting repeated mistakes of a similar nature. The author looks at the 1970s (the decade of technical awakening in manufacturing); the 1980s (experimental years in manufacturing integration); the 1990s (the decade of synchronization) and the dawn of the Knowledge Age; best management practice in technology, in the office, in operations and with people; and three elements which a model company needs to address: (1) intensify the capacity for `brain power´, (2) demand multi-dimensional managers, and (3) promote the ability to cope with diversity and pluralism