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- This article outlines the evolution of management systems. A management system is the framework of processes and procedures used to ensure that an organization can fulfill all tasks required to achieve its objectives. After World War II, the reigning paradigm of product-oriented mass production had reached its peak. Examples of management systems at that time are linear assembly lines, organizational hierarchies of command, product quality control and mass consumption. Soon afterwards, the Deming-Juran process-quality teachings spearheaded a new quality orientation (later referred to as Total quality management) and propelled Japan directly to the post-war process focus (process quality control, just-in-time, continuous improvement). The US responded by a painful and prolonged product-to-process transformation, ultimately leveling the playing field again by the mid 1980s. At the end of the 1980s, business process reengineering focused on the radical redesign of the production process through the reintegration of task, labor and knowledge. As a result, lean, flexible and streamlined production processes were created, capable of fast response and internet-based integration necessary for the upcoming phase of supply chains - business-to-business (B2B) – as well as demand chains – business-to-customer (B2C). In the above three stages of evolution of management systems, the competitive advantage was derived almost exclusively from the internal resources of the firm. At the end of the 1980s, a radical fourth shift has occurred: the competitive advantage became increasingly derived from the external resources of the firm – through the extended networks of suppliers and customers. Figure 1 refers to the basic scheme of production and service delivery process. It represents the traditional linear input-process-output management system. This system has been fixed and unchanging for centuries. The only change has been in terms of changing focus on individual components of the system, emphasizing different parts of this basic scheme. Although the scheme itself (inputs → process → outputs) remains mostly unchallenged, there are some indications that this business model will undergo major restructurings in the future (in the emerging stages of evolution of management systems). It will become disaggregated and distributed, subjected to non-linear modularity and bringing forth new ways of making things and delivering services. Then it will become reintegrated again, tying together globally distributed components into a unified recycling whole. (en)
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