流程改进的敏捷性研究

John Sharp is a professor of Organisational Excellence。thefounder and director of Centre of OrganisatiOnaI Excellence（CORE）at Salford Business School，the University of Salfordin the UK，a chartered mechanical engineer（C．Eng．M．I．Mech．E．）and a qualified assessor for the EFQM fEuropean FoundationQuality Model）which is being used by businesses and publicsector organisations as a business excellence model for thefuture．In the past 1 0 years。Prof Sharp has received more than￡2 million of research grants frOm EPSRC and Europeanorganisations，and published over 50 papers and books．Healso has rich industrial experience，such as working as anengineer at Rolls—Royce Aero Engine for 8 years．
Bing Deng is a research assistant in this project and is currentlyworking as an editor of Hubei Provincial Science and TechnologyPress．She has helped organise research events and activities，collect and input data for the research analysis and discussion．

Xueyuan Liu is the director of the Resea rch Centre ofBusiness Excellence，an associate professor of InternationalBusiness and Operations Management in the Economics andManagement School of Wuhan University，and a visitingresearcher at the Business School of Manchester MetropolitanUniversity。UK．He is also a member of the Academy ofManagement（AOM），the Academy of International Business（AIB）and the Production and Operations Management SocietyfPOMS）．He holds an MBA in InternationaI Business and PhDin Operations Management frOm Salford Business Sch001．theUniversity of Salford in the UK．His PhD thesis，on which thisbook is much based，had won the 2nd prize in the prestigiousIQA（now known as CQI—Chartered Quality Institute since2007）National Award 2006（UK）．He has also attended manyinternatiOnal COnferences WOrIdwide and devered andpublished several papers on operations and cross—culturalmanagement in the international context．Besides his academicachievement，he had more than 12 years’expe rience inmanagerial and consulting practices in?China，USA and theUK．He has travelled more than 20 countries in Asia，Northand South America，Europe and Africa，and visited manycompanies such as Philips，IKEA，Nissan，Toyota，Jaguar，Bentley and Textron at their different locations．Quality，efficiency and innovation are what he thinks to be the mostbasic and important factors for any business to survive andprosper in the long run．

Acknowledgement
Declaration
Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations
Chapter 1 An Introduction
1.1 Chapter introduction
1.2 Research Background
1.2.1 Dynamic market and various panaceas
1.2.2 Contrasting Phenomenon in the Motor Industry
1.2.3 Motor Industry and AM
1.3 Research rationale and necessity
1.4 Research aim and objectives
1.5 Research questions， methodology and administration
1.6 The proposed contributions and limitations
1.7 The structure of the book
1.8 Chapter summary

Chapter 2 The Evolution of AM and BPI
2.1 Chapter Introduction
2.2 The Evolution of Management Strategy and Technique
2.2.1 Agricultural Era
2.2.2 Industrial Era
2.2.3 Quality Era
2.2.4 Knowledge Era
2.2.5 A Summary
2.3 Agile Manufacting （AM）
2.3.1 The Concept of AM
2.3.2 The Implementation of AM in Practice
2.3.3 The Four Major Principles of AM
2.3.4 Eight Constructs of AM
2.3.5 A Summary on AM
2.4 BPI
2.4.1 The Concepts
2.4.2 BPI Approaches
2.4.3 BPI Methodologies
2.4.4 A Summary on BPI
2.5 The Linkages Between AM and BPI
2.6 A General Understanding of The Auto Industry
2.6.1 The Development of The World Auto Industry
2.6.2 The Manufacturing Practices in The Auto Industry
2.6.3 The UK Luxury Car Manufacturing Industry： Facts and Features
2.7 Chapter Summary

Chapter 3 The Theoretical Agile BPI Framework
3.1 Chapter Introduction
3.2 The Theoretical Agile BPI Framework
3.3 Chapter Summary

Chapter 4 The Research Methodology
4.1 Chapter Introduction
4.2 The Research Philosophy， Strategy and Methods
4.2.1 Research Philosophy
4.2.2 Research Strategy
4.2.3 Data Collection Methods
4.2.4 Research Analytical Strategy and Techniques
4.3 The Case Study Design and Administration
4.3.1 The Design
4.3.2 The Preparation
4.3.3 The Data Collection
4.3.4 The Data Maintaining and Manipulation
4.4 Chapter Summary

Chapter 5 The Case Study and the Results
5.1 Chapter Introduction
5.2 An Overview of the Case Study Company
5.2.1 A Brief History
5.2.2 The Vision， Mission and Key Goals
5.2.3 The Main Products and Markets
5.2.4 The Management Structure
5.2.5 The BPI Project
5.3 The Results and Analysis
5.3.1 The Agile Constructs
5.3.2 The BPI Performance and Its Enablers and Barriers
5.3.3 Some Outstanding Issues
5.4 A Summary of the Results

Chapter 6 The Discussion
6.1 Chapter Introduction
6.2 Discussions of the Results
6.2.1 The Agile Constructs
6.2.2 The BPI Practice and Barriers
6.2.3 Some other Outstanding Issues
6.3 The Barriers of Agility of BPI
6.4 Theoretical Implications and a Modified Agile BPI Framework
6.4.1 Theoretical Implications
6.4.2 A Modified Agile BPI Theoretical Framework
6.5 Managerial Implications
6.6 The Originality and Contributions
6.7 A Critique on This Research
6.8 Recommendations for Further Study
6.9 Chapter Summary

Chapter 7 Conclusion
7.1 A Review of this Research
7.2 Achievement of Aims and Objectives
7.3 The Contributions， Limitations and Recommendations
7.3.1 The Originality and Contributions
7.3.2 The Limitations and Recommendations for Further Study
7.4 An Overall Conclusion
References
Appendices
Appendix A Covering Letter to the UK Car-manufacturers
Appendix B Research Proposal
Appendix C Confidentiality/Non Disclosure Agreement
Appendix D Attended training courses for case study research
Appendix E Case Study Protocol
Appendix F A Consent Form
Appendix G Interview Plan
Appendix H Interview Questions
Appendix I A sample of contact summary
Appendix J Organisational structure & terms
Appendix K Managerial recommendations

Generally， CI is regarded as a culture of sustained improvement targeting the eliminationof waste in all systems and processes of an organisation， and it involves everyone workingtogether to make improvements without necessarily making huge capital investments（Bhuiyan & Baghel， 2005）. CI can occur through evolutionary improvement， in which caseimprovement are incremental， or through radical changes that take place as a result of aninnovative idea or new technolog and often， major improvements take place over time as aresult of numerous incremental improvements （Hamel， 2000; Bhuiyan & Baghel， 2005）.Improvement achieved through the use of a number of tools and techniques dedicated tosearching for sources of problems， waste， and variation and finding ways to minimise them，with the best known methodologies as： LM， Six Sigma， BSC， lean Six Sigma.
CI is also known as Kaizen （Imai， 1986）， a Japanese term for CI， and is promoted in threetypes： management-，group-and individual-oriented as discussed in section 2.Management-oriented kaizen is considered to be the most important one as it focuses on thecompany strategy and involves everyone in the company. Group-oriented kaizen is bestrepresented by quality circles， which require employees to form a team or a circle with thegoal of finding and solving problems faced during their day-to-day work without anyinterference from management. Individual-oriented kaizen is derived from the Concept ofbottom-up design， in which the worker makes a recommendation to the problem faced. Thishas been very successful in the Japanese industry since it is the worker who is on the shopfloor and typically knows the best solution to an existing problem. Certain industries evenhave incentive programs where， depending on the problem and the solution provided， theworker is rewarded， thus encouraging the workers to concentrate on problem areas and findthe best solution （Bhuiyan & Baghel， 2005）.
Internal communication is vital to the effective implementation of organisational change，as it is not only a crucial variable in relation to achieving organisational success， but also aprecursor for organisational existence， because organisation would not exist withoutcommunication （Harshman and Harshman， 1999; Kitchen & Dale6 2002; Elving， 2005）.Resistance to change may come from many sources： .fear of status， fear of failure， and lack ofperceived benefits， or people simply resist being treated as pawns， particularly whenorganisational reshuffle is involved， but poorly managed change communication is regardedas a key driver of negative feelings among the employees， and results in rumours andresistance to change， exaggerating the negative aspects of the change （Proctor & Doukakis，2003; Elving， 2005）.