Insights from manufacturing scheduling for work allocation in knowledge-intensive firms

Summary form only given. Management approaches from the industrial or mass-consumer sectors, based as they are on the standardization, supervision and marketing of repetitive tasks and products, are not only inapplicable in the professional sector, they may be dangerously wrong. This research program challenges these criticisms by considering the use of manufacturing models to address specific problem of allocating work assignments in knowledge intensive firms. The general utility of manufacturing principles for professional service firms and other knowledge-intensive organizations is also considered