Economies of Scale

Go To: Advancing Competitiveness Homepage

Credit: Pixabay

A Conceptual Framework for Economic Decision Making in Advancing Manufacturing Industry Competitiveness: Economies of Scale

For more information, see NIST AMS 100-80.

The last part of the framework, described on the Advancing Competitiveness homepage, is Enterprise-Wide Utilization. This can generally be seen as harnessing economies of scale and standardizing metrics. As more change agents collaborate, there is more data being shared moving away from episodic learning that happens in silos to enterprise-wide learning that compounds. This results in a sharing of the costs for collecting information and sharing knowledge, resulting in more knowledge per dollar of expenditure. 

Achieving enterprise-wide utilization is likely to require a centralized hub that maintains data (see descriptions of the opportunity map and hypotheses data) and maintains the standard classifications and methods with the result being a hub-and-spoke model where the spokes feed and extract data via the hub. The hub includes logistics management and a centralized economics office that develops and maintains methods, platforms, data, data classifications, guidance, and conducts research to advance impact. The spokes are operating units that develop projects for advancing manufacturing competitiveness. They feed data into and pull data out of the hub while adhering to standards and methods.

The consequence of the framework replicates approaches in other highly impactful programs such as those discussed in Section 1 where they increase forecast accuracy to realize high impact/returns. The potential growth in impact is likely substantial for R&D programs that do not track impact or generate feedback loops for impact.

Framework Components, Logic, and Implementation

Credit: Pixabay The Framework	Credit: Pixabay Framework Logic	Credit: Pixabay Implementation Infrastructure
The Framework's Process	Background: Impact Forecasting	Notes and Cautions
Data Layers and Feed Back Loops	Supporting Logic and Evidence	Standards and Platforms
Metrics and Units of Observation	Economies of Scale	Modular Adoption

Credit: AMS 100-80

Collaboration is a key component to reducing change agent costs and enabling compound learning. If you are considering adopting this framework, consider reaching out to the author Douglas Thomas, Economist: douglas.thomas [at] nist.gov (douglas[dot]thomas[at]nist[dot]gov)