: In today's rapidly evolving global marketplace, jobs are continually being redefined due to technological innovations and a host of other factors. Workers are also being called upon to change in response to industry's increased demands for cross-functional teamwork. Simple job descriptions, therefore, are becoming obsolete as the preference for such workers directs the emphasis away from workplace tasks and toward those who perform them. This new worker-oriented approach focuses on individuals' competencies, clusters of specialized skills, knowledge, and abilities, as opposed to the task-oriented approach, which emphasizes observable, quantifiable, and measurable actions applied to objects. Another factor impacting the world of work has been the pressure to eliminate all forms of waste in manufacturing as companies strive to compete on a global scale. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), considered to be the next generation of lean thinking, shows great promise as a mea...
Sharron A. Frillman, Kari L. Wilde, Jonathan F. Ko