A synthesis for success

Professor John L Burbidge HonFIProdE argues that by organising a company in terms of product and not process, the principle of group technology (GT), and allying that with the method of Just in Time manufacturing associated with period batch control (PBC), that Western companies can take proper control of their production processes and so take on the might of the Japanese. This paper was first presented at the Xth International Conference on Production Research held in Nottingham in August.