QUALITY AND SYSTEM MANAGEMENT

Quality and system management

Acknowledgements

Writing this thesis has been very demanding, challenging and time-consuming, but also remarkable, informative and above all fun. Nevertheless, it feels great to have finally completed my bachelor's or master's thesis and I am now looking forward to the nice relaxing period for recovering. It has been both advantages and drawbacks with limited amount of earlier research conducted within this area, even though I faced serious troubles but sometimes advantages of this research luckily were in my favor and have made this research both challenging and interesting.

I would like to thank my supervisor -------, professor at -------University, who has been great in guiding my through this thesis, helping me through difficulties I faced during entire process and motivated me to work hard. Furthermore, I would like to thank all my friends, for their contributions by sharing their perceptions and opinions with me. Above all I would like to thank my family and teachers that provided me with valuable and constructive criticism.

Abstract

The movement of firms towards joint ventures and collaborative projects has been the feature of 1990s. Such agreements allow the means of spreading costs and risks associated with new product development, sharing costly manufacturing capacity and facilities, and may also provide access to new capabilities. However, there are examples when relationship is not the success for one of parties involved. If firms enter joint ventures from the position of weakness or without the concerted strategy that may become dependent on their partner. This was case with Rover and its links to Honda. Due to design of Rover's financial weakness and manufacturing capabilities were eroded as most of their products were replaced with Honda developed models. This case provides important lessons and warnings for other firms seeking strategic alliances, and gives researchers an idea of complex interaction between companies involved in this relationship.

Quality and system management

Introduction

This article reviews developments in manufacturing and design capability in Rover Group as the result of its ties with Honda. case is based on data obtained from public sources, action research and interviews conducted between 1987 and 1994, when company was eventually bought by BMW and Honda, ended relationship (Pilkington, 1996). Projects those two companies to share.

This paper discovers span to which innovation can be stimulated and worth increased through exploitation of research and development (R&D) interventions. Is it likely to co-create worth (Vargo et al., 2008), through what is in result an interior service exchange (an issue at which information is moved and acted on upon) between R&D and shop floor? Investigators have recognized the case, or set about, that proposes obstacles to information move (McLaughlin and Paton, 2008a, b) can be overwhelmed and innovative promise issued through the administered commitment at shop floor level. Case company, Honda, emerge to be leveraging information move method at issue of exchange between R&D interventions and those ascribed with implementation. They are blending, as proposed by Chesbrough et al. (2006), Ichijo and Nonaka (2007) and other ones, information, expertise and innovation ...