Technology and manufacturing‐and‐service operations since the Industrial Revolution

Self Cite

Long‐term vision depends on history, and on history alone. Scholarship in technology, manufacturing, and operations management is incomplete without a knowledge of history. In chronicling the history of technology, knowledge, and manufacturing, we have traced the remarkable continuity in the evolution of humans from hominins to homo sapiens, in the migration of homo sapiens from Africa to the furthest reaches of the world, and in the rise of civilizations and industrialization driven by agriculture surplus. Technology, knowledge, and manufacturing did not and do not exist in isolation and many disciplines have addressed them in the literature. Here, we concern ourselves with human history until 1760, roughly when the Industrial Revolution began. Our companion paper, Singhal and Singhal (2022; Technology and manufacturing‐and‐service operations 1760–1945. Production and Operations Management, this issue), explores the history of technology and manufacturing‐and‐service operations since the Industrial Revolution.

Section: The Importance Of Historymentioning

confidence: 72%

“…Far from it! Our companion paper, Singhal and Singhal (2022), provides a glimpse of the remarkable true story of the Industrial Revolution and of the industrial decay that accompanied it.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Development In Technology and The Rise Of Civilizationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Technology, knowledge, and manufacturing before the Industrial Revolution

Singhal

2022

Self Cite

“…Figure 1 parses Industry 4.0 technologies in a historical context, mapping and contrasting them with previous generations of technologies (see Singhal and Singhal 2022a, 2022b for an insightful history of OM). We draw on prior work (Agrawal et al., 2020; Mithas et al., 2020) to parse emerging Industry 4.0 technologies in terms of the following functionalities: (1) the ability to sense the environment ( sense ), (2) the ability to analyze information ( analyze ), (3) the ability to collaborate with others within or across firms ( collaborate ), and (4) the ability to automatically complete tasks ( execute ).…”

Section: Theory Of Disruptive Debottlenecking and The Sace Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

How will artificial intelligence and Industry 4.0 emerging technologies transform operations management?

Mithas

Chen

Saldanha³

et al. 2022

Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, additive manufacturing, advanced robotics, autonomous vehicles, and the Internet of Things are frequently mentioned as part of “Industry 4.0.” As such, how will they influence operations and supply chain management? We answer this question by providing a brief review of the evolution of technologies and operations management (OM) over time. Because terms such as “Industry 4.0” do not have a precise definition, we focus on more fundamental issues raised by Industry 4.0 emerging technologies for research in OM. We propose a theory of disruptive debottlenecking and the SACE framework by classifying emerging technologies in terms of the functionalities they enable: sense, analyze, collaborate, and execute. Subsequently, we review the nascent but rapidly growing literature at the interface between digital technologies and OM. Our review suggests that one way to assess the value of Industry 4.0 technologies can be via their influence on adding revenues, differentiating, reducing costs, optimizing risks, innovating, and transforming business models and processes. Finally, we conclude by proposing an agenda for further research.

Trends and Patterns in the Key Attributes of the 24 Top Business Journals: 2001–2021

Mithas,

Silveira

2024

We document trends and patterns in the key attributes of the 24 top journals during 2001–2021 using data from the Web of Science. These trends include growth by disciplines and journals represented among selected journals in terms of growth in publications, relative publication share of disciplines, number of unique authors, attributes of prolific authors, and the extent of interdisciplinary contributions. We compare and contrast our findings with prior studies and offer a few conjectures on similarities and differences in the findings. We hope that our descriptive findings will spur further research on the production function of science and help identify the determinants of research productivity in top journals.