ELSEVIER Int. J. Production Economics 35 (1994) 405406

Book Review

international journal of

production economics

Managing Innovative Projects, Edited London, 1994.

As the author writes in the preface the title sums up the purpose of his book exactly: “managing”, as it is written for practicing managers, “innovative”, as it deals with the development of new products, and “projects” as it explains the techniques that are generally referred to as “project management” methods.

Although innovation is a leap into unknown, good and thorough management can diminish the uncertainty and risk about it. This book can be a great help in this as it is a treasury of innovation management methods.

After the introduction, the second chapter gives a short summary of the innovation theory. The third deals with the organization of projects, main- ly with the teams, and with the leadership theories and practices, since it can be particularly important for project managers.

The next chapter is about planning and espe- cially goes into details about the network analysis (critical path analysis). This technique came into vogue during the early 1960s and was hailed as the panacea for all project management ills. But as the author put it, things are never that simple, and although the technique has helped greatly in con- trolling large projects, it cannot compensate for slippage due to under-resourcing, unforeseen diffi- culties, cash problems or poor management.

In the fifth chapter, which details the designs, the author’s opinion is similar on the simultaneous engineering, which also should not be considered a panacea. Its most suitable use is in projects where

by Alan Webb, Chapman and Hall,

the outcome is reasonably well assured. Where the outcome is less certain either because of the cus- tomer or the technology, a more cautions step-by- step approach may be appropriate. This chapter gives the right understanding of simultaneous en- gineering. Simultaneous is thus better thought of as referring to the input of all the disciplines in the project taking place at the same time rather than all the activities going on together. There is always a logical order in which things can be done and it does not differ greatly from one project to another, to attempt to work in a work that defies this logic would be risky and potentially very costly.

The author emphasizes the market-orientation of the project and the Project Managers himself. The first objective must always be the commercial success of the venture, good design goes beyond excellence in technical performance. Low cost but high value is a significance factor in business success.

The next chapter describes two principal methods design-to-cost and value engineering, which can promote ways that lead to low-cost or high value solutions.

Very interesting and novel the seventh chapter is in which the author describes the application of manufacturing resource planning system to manag- ing the flow of material in product development. Essential differences between production and de- velopment work may mean that MRP system does not conform quite so early with the less certain and more reactive demands of development and some

09255273/94/$07.00 lc> 1994 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

modification or accommodation may have to be made if they are to be used successfully. Neverthe- less, the logic and discipline that interest in com- puter-based scheduling can force managers and planners to make realistic appraisals.

The eighth chapter deals with project control while the next with the production aspects of the projects, including economic aspects of tooling, learning curves, production progress, and produc- tion readiness. The tenth chapter describes estima- ting methods, which can control cost over-runs. These are very acute problems of innovative pro- jects. The author refers to a research in the UK and USA into relationship between the initial estimate of project cost and the final actual cost. This has

shown that over-runs of 100% of the original figure are quite common and much higher figures have been recorded.

The next two chapters deal with risk manage- ment and commercial aspects of project manage- ment, while the last section offer some useful computer softwares for project managers.

This book is easy to be read and understood. A lot of examples needed “Case study” or “Case Example” make it more understandable.

The author recommends his book mainly for practicing managers, but it can also be useful for MSE courses.

Janos Kiss