Aiming higher in conceptualizing manageable measures in production research

Fisher, W. P., Jr. (2022). Aiming higher in conceptualizing manageable measures in production research. In N. Durakbasa & M. G. Gençyilmaz (Eds.), Digitizing production systems: Selected papers from ISPR2021 (pp. xix-xxxix). Springer. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bfm%3A978-3-030-90421-0%2F1

Posted: 18 Jan 2024

See all articles by William P. Fisher

William P. Fisher

University of California, Berkeley - BEAR Center

Date Written: 2022

Abstract

The economics of commercial production are dependent in several key respects on the market institutions that create the context for profitable transactions. Markets are not created as much by trade as by the institutions that structure the standards taken for granted in the background of agreements and contracts. Property rights, scientific rationality, access to capital, and transportation and communications networks are all essential to a functional economy. These key elements are integrated into today’s market institutions only for manufactured capital, however, as they are mistakenly deemed irrelevant or inaccessible to human, social and natural capital. Costs associated with measuring and managing human, social and natural capital are, then, minimized and externalized whenever possible. Contrary to common opinion, however, proven, well-documented and long-standing resources exist for bringing scientific rationality to bear on intangible assets in meaningful and useful ways. The role of measurement standards in creating common product definitions and enforceable property rights, and in lowering transaction costs—and so in creating economically effective market institutions—is well understood, but virtually no attention has been paid to opportunities for extending those definitions, rights and lower costs into the domains of intangible assets. One crucial aspect of the problem is the widespread but mistaken assumption that quantification inherently requires the homogenization and smothering of unique individual differences. On the contrary, standards are the means by which both global harmonization and mass customization become possible, as is eminently apparent in the way universally accessible musical scales and tuned instruments set the stage for creative improvisation. Everyday language provides the model prototype for metrology as well as for the complex interrelations of formal, abstract and concrete meanings that are deployed in measurement. Designing and implementing standardized communications media adaptable to local circumstances are inherently complex, but solutions have been available, tested and in use for decades. Multilevel semiotic systems for communicating and managing the development and growth of human, social and natural processes set the stage for new developments in production research.

Keywords: production research; proceedings; engineering; metrology; markets; measurement; transaction costs; property rights; efficient markets; Rasch; institutional economics; capital; human capital; intangible assets; social capital; natural capital;

JEL Classification: B15, B23, B25, B26, B52, K11, L15, L16, L22, O17, O34, O43, P11, P12, P14, P16, P17, P48

Suggested Citation

Fisher, William P., Aiming higher in conceptualizing manageable measures in production research ( 2022). Fisher, W. P., Jr. (2022). Aiming higher in conceptualizing manageable measures in production research. In N. Durakbasa & M. G. Gençyilmaz (Eds.), Digitizing production systems: Selected papers from ISPR2021 (pp. xix-xxxix). Springer. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bfm%3A978-3-030-90421-0%2F1, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4697094

William P. Fisher (Contact Author)

University of California, Berkeley - BEAR Center ( email )

Berkeley, CA 94704
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.LivingCapitalMetrics.com

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