CAD, CAM, CAE and CIM systems with their ability to quickly generate and change product data have strained the conventional systems used to manage data. As a result, the time spent by an engineer in looking for the right information far exceeds the time spent on the actual design work. A product...

Managing New Product Development and Innovation provides a new approach to the microeconomics of innovation by measuring the technical quality of new products and guiding the managers of innovation and technology in the central considerations of today's knowledge-based companies. The volume...

Services now play a remarkably prominent role in modern economies. Not surprisingly, economists and marketing researchers have begun to turn their attention to the analysis of activities in the so-called tertiary sector. In this chapter we attempt to contribute to the effort of systematizing the...