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Nuclear winter is over in the high-tech job market.

Software developers, design and systems engineers, network administrators and others are finding companies with a slew of openings eager to make offers and willing to negotiate better pay and benefits.

Online job postings in Phoenix alone top 3,000 and classified ads proliferate, a huge change from 2001-02, when the information-technology industry went through a cold, brutal shakedown.

“That winter has thawed, and we are definitely into … Tech-worker gap

THERE is clearly confusion between Lean, Agile, 6 Sigma, TQM, etc. But what falls under the Lean umbrella and how do you get there? And how do we avoid initiative overload?

The term Lean suggests no fat or a minimum level of fat and applying this to business would imply minimum levels of waste. This suggests that to become lean we must remove waste from the business processes to leave just that activity that adds value. Whilst this would appear logical, actually understanding that which is of value versus that which is not, and then applying this to all aspects of a business is difficult. And often the answers do not lie within the grasp of management running the business, but with people who are closest to the process and better placed to see the value and waste. Read More:A step by step guide to lean manufacturing

Does Innovation Through Acquisition Work? - Forbes.com
Microsoft’s acquisition of Great Plains to link front-end applications with enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications is a case in point, Chaudhuri notes. “The idea behind the deal is to have seamless integration between the back-end ERP applications, like manufacturing planning, supply-chain management, HR management and financial accounting, and front-end Windows and Office applications. But since Great Plains’ relationship-based consulting approach, supporting processes and IT systems are very different from Microsoft’s infrastructure (which is geared toward selling packaged software), these differences are naturally taking time to be reconciled,”

Previously, a company would have agonisingly developed drawings, physical models and made endless expensive tests before taking a product to market with little or no proven prospects it will return a profit. Now it is a case of utilising available market data and actually fast tracking a product or service to exactly meet the criteria dictated by current market demand.

But instead of time-consuming drawings, these are designed, tested and refined quickly and accurately in the digital 3D environment, so wastage is virtually negligible.
Product Lifecycle Management - Edge Software Australia - PLM more than just hype

Process manufacturing is the way chemical, food, and liquids manufacturers work. This is different from what how discreet manufacturers (manufacturers who make tangible items) run their operations. For an interesting article, please see:

Process Manufacturing