Management Imperatives for the Year 2000
Traditional management styles and organizational structures must change radically if business is to face successfully the competitive challenges of the next century. Ways must be found to unlock the creative potential which is manifest at the middle and lower levels of our present bureaucratic organizations. Progressive companies, often in joint cooperation with unions, are already pointing the way to the future by encouraging broader involvement in decisions once throught to be vested only among those at the higher levels. Technology can be a driving force for change. The requirement that large numbers of employees be clustered in offices and factories will no longer be appropriate when one projects the implications of the microprocessor revolution. Much of what we know of as "work" can be performed in the home or in remote locations, thus resulting in decentralized organizational structures and a change in the nature of work in community life and in society as a whole.
Xerox Cuts Costs Without Layoffs Through Union-Management Collaboration
The case study that follows deals with Xerox Corporation, a multinational equipment manufacturing company that decided to work with its union to find ways to use employees' skills and new technologies in addressing economic problems in its manufacturing division. The specific labor-management cooperation project described here began after the Xerox Corporation decided that to produce some of its products competitively, it would need to save over 53 million in production costs. At first, the only solution the company saw was closing down one department, laying off ISO employees, and subcontracting the manufacturing of component parts. But this did not happen. Instead, the company and union agreed to try the unorthodox route of collaboration to solve economic and production problems—without any layoffs. This collaborative effort came despite a companywide downsizing policy that resulted in extensive layoffs throughout Xerox.
Evaluation of buckling load and dynamic performance of steel shear wall retrofitted with strips made of shape memory alloy
One of the most imperfections of the steel shear wall is out of plane displacements that cause severe damage in both structural and non-structural elements. In this paper, the effects of shape-memory alloys on steel shear walls are investigated. First, a numerical analysis using the finite element method in ABAQUS software has been carried out according to an experimental test. The results of the numerical analysis have been verified with experimental results. Next, shape-memory alloy fibers have been added vertically and horizontally to various parts of the steel shear wall. The results show that retrofitting with the shape-memory alloy reduces the out-of-plane displacement of the steel shear wall under both cyclic and seismic loadings. Besides, the buckling load in the steel shear wall increases when it is retrofitted with the shape-memory alloy. Also, the total out-of-plane movement (accumulated absolute displacements) of the steel shear wall and non-structural damage are controlled by the characteristic of a shape-memory alloy material called “super-elastic”.