Research and identify the “fl atteners” Thomas Friedman discusses in his book The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. What impact do these have on manufacturing?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The 10 flatteners listed in The World Is Flat are the following:
1. The Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989.
2. Netscape became the fi rst widely available Web browser, popularized in the 1990s.
3. Workflow software, which increases the ability of machines to talk to other machines with no humans involved, has had significant impact on manufacturing and globalization in manufacturing.
4. Uploading is the ability of communities to collaborate on online projects and has reshaped manufacturing, for example, the Boeing Dreamliner.
5. Outsourcing has allowed companies to separate service and manufacturing activities, which can be subcontracted and performed in the most efficient, cost-effective way.
6. Off shoring, or the relocation of a company’s manufacturing or other processes to a foreign land to take advantage of less costly operations, has had probably the most signifi cant impact onmanufacturing businesses.
7. Wal-Mart’s use of supply-chaining has allowed companies to streamline item sales, distribution, and shipping. This has propagated into manufacturing as well.
8. In insourcing, a company performs services, outside of their core business, for another company.
9. In-forming, or the ability to fi nd information, has been led by Google and other search engines.
10. Friedman’s “Steroids” include wireless connectivity, mobile phones, iPods, personal digital assistants (PDAs), instant messaging, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).