November 2006

Judge Business School today announced that its Centre for Competitiveness and Innovation (CCI) will be running two intensive two-day open executive education programmes in Cambridge, which will provide the latest insights into the strategic management of innovation and the use of lean strategies to enhance business performance.

The courses, which will be held at the business school in November, are designed to blend academic thinking and best industry practice in a highly interactive environment, where senior managers can consider how these strategies can be applied to their own businesses to best effect.

The first programme, entitled "Managing Innovation Strategically," will be directed by Professor Nick Oliver, Co-Director of the CCI, on 9th and 10th November, and will include faculty from Cambridge and MIT. Professor Oliver explained, "Business needs to understand the dynamics of innovation, particularly how to create and sustain innovation. This requires attention to issues of culture, as well as technologies and markets."

Dr Matthias Holweg, Senior Lecturer in Operations Management, co-author of the best-selling book The Second Century and leading expert on lean thinking and supply chain systems, will present "Applying Lean Principles for Business Transformation" on 16th and 17th November. The course will provide insights and strategies on how lean thinking can be successfully implemented across industries, including the service sector, operations and business processes, to improve operational excellence.

Commenting on the course, Dr Holweg said, "Despite the widespread success of lean principles in the manufacturing environment, companies often struggle to achieve a sustainable lean enterprise, or suffer from conflicting improvement initiatives. In this course, we will address these issues and demonstrate how, with the alignment of organisational structures, a sustainable lean programme can be achieved, enhancing the value proposition for the customer."

Director of Judge Business School Professor Arnoud De Meyer said, "I strongly believe that, as a business school, our ambition must be to make a significant impact on managers and their businesses. Business schools owe it to their partner organisations to offer their executives the opportunity to learn throughout their professional lives and apply the concepts that they have learnt."