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The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
By Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox
Written in a fast-paced thriller style, The Goal is the gripping novel which is transforming management thinking throughout the Western world. The author has been described by Fortune as a 'guru to industry' and by Businessweek as a 'genius'. It is a book to recommend to your friends in industry - even to your bosses - but not to your competitors. Alex Rogo is a harried plant manager working ever more desperately to try and improve performance. His factory is rapidly heading for disaster. So is his marriage. He has ninety days to save his plant - or it will be closed by corporate HQ, with hundreds of job losses. It takes a chance meeting with a colleague from student days - Jonah - to help him break out of conventional ways of thinking to see what needs to be done. The story of Alex's fight to save his plant is more than compulsive reading. It contains a serious message for all managers in industry and explains the ideas which underline the Theory of Constraints (TOC) developed by Eli Goldratt. Eliyahu M. Goldratt is an internationally recognized leader in the development of new business management concepts and systems, and acts as an educator to many of the world's corporations. The 20th anniversary edition includes a series of detailed case study interviews by David Whitford, Editor at Large, Fortune Small Business, which explore how organizations around the world have been transformed by Eli Goldratt's ideas.
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Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation
By James P Womack and Daniel T Jones
This bestselling business classic by two internationally renowned management analysts describes a business system for the twenty-first century that supersedes the mass production system of Ford, the financial control system of Sloan, and the strategic system of Welch and GE. It is based on the Toyota (lean) model, which combines operational excellence with value-based strategies to produce steady growth through a wide range of economic conditions. In contrast with the crash-and-burn performance of companies trumpeted by business gurus in the 1990s, the firms profiled in "Lean Thinking" -- from tiny Lantech to midsized Wiremold to niche producer Porsche to gigantic Pratt & Whitney -- have kept on keeping on, largely unnoticed, along a steady upward path through the market turbulence and crushed dreams of the early twenty-first century. Meanwhile, the leader in lean thinking -- Toyota -- has set its sights on leadership of the global motor vehicle industry in this decade. Instead of constantly reinventing business models, lean thinkers go back to basics by asking what the customer really perceives as "value." (It's often not at all what existing organizations and assets would suggest.) The next step is to line up value-creating activities for a specific product along a "value stream" while eliminating activities (usually the majority) that don't add value. Then the lean thinker creates a "flow" condition in which the design and the product advance smoothly and rapidly at the "pull" of the customer (rather than the push of the producer). Finally, as flow and pull are implemented, the lean thinker speeds up the cycle of improvement in pursuit of "perfection." The first part of this book describes each of these concepts and makes them come alive with striking examples. "Lean Thinking" clearly demonstrates that these simple ideas can breathe new life into any company in any industry in any country. But most managers need guidance on how to make the lean leap in their firm. Part II provides a step-by-step action plan, based on in-depth studies of more than fifty lean companies in a wide range of industries across the world. Even those readers who believe they have embraced lean thinking will discover in Part III that another dramatic leap is possible by creating an extended lean enterprise for each of their product families that tightly links value-creating activities from raw materials to customer. In Part IV, an epilogue to the original edition, the story of lean thinking is brought up-to-date with an enhanced action plan based on the experiences of a range of lean firms since the original publication of "Lean Thinking.""Lean Thinking" does not provide a new management "program" for the one-minute manager. Instead, it offers a new method of thinking, of being, and, above all, of doing for the serious long-term manager -- a method that is changing the world.
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The Toyota Way
By Jeffrey K. Liker
'This book will give you an understanding of what has made Toyota successful and some practical ideas that you can use to develop your own approach to business' - Gary Convis, Managing Office of Toyota. Fewer man-hours. Less inventory. The highest quality cars with the fewest defects of any competing manufacturer. In factories around the globe, Toyota consistently raises the bar for manufacturing, product development, and process excellence. The result is an amazing business success story: steadily taking market share from price-cutting competitors, earning far more profit than any other automaker, and winning the praise of business leaders worldwide.Drawing on his extensive research on Toyota, Dr.Liker shares his insights into the foundational principles at work in the Toyota culture. He explains how the Toyota Production System evolved as a new paradigm of manufacturing excellence, transforming businesses across industries. You'll learn how Toyota fosters employee involvement at all levels, discover the difference between traditional process improvement and Toyota's Lean improvement, and learn why companies often think they are Lean-but aren't. The fourteen management principles of the "Toyota Way" create the ideal environment for implementing Lean techniques and tools.Dr. Liker explains each key principle with detailed, examples from Toyota and other Lean companies on how to: foster an atmosphere of continuous improvement and learning; create continuous process 'flow' to unearth problems; satisfy customers (and eliminate waste at the same time); grow your leaders rather than purchase them; get quality right the first time; and grow together with your suppliers and partners for mutual benefit.Dr.Liker shows the Toyota Way in action, then outlines how to apply the "Toyota Way" in your organization, with examples of how other companies have rebuilt their culture to create a Lean, learning enterprise. "The Toyota Way" is an inspiring guide to taking the steps necessary to emulate Toyota's remarkable success. What can your business learn from Toyota? How to double or triple the speed of any business process? How to build quality into workplace systems? How to eliminate the huge costs of hidden waste? How to turn every employee into a quality control inspector? How to dramatically improve your products and services! With a market capitalization greater than the value of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler combined, Toyota is also, (by far), the world's most profitable automaker.Toyota's secret weapon is Lean production - the revolutionary approach to business processes that it invented in the 1950's and has spent decades perfecting. Today businesses around the world are implementing Toyota's radical system for speeding up processes, reducing waste, and improving quality. "The Toyota Way", explains Toyota's unique approach to lean - the 14 management principles and philosophy that drive Toyota's quality and efficiency-obsessed culture. You'll gain valuable insights that can be applied to any organization and any business process, whether in services or manufacturing.Professor Jeffrey Liker has been studying Toyota for twenty years, and was given unprecedented access to Toyota executives, employees and factories, both in Japan and the United States, for this landmark work. The book is full of examples of the 14 fundamental principles at work in the Toyota culture, and how these principles create a culture of continuous learning and improvement. You'll discover how the right combination of long-term philosophy, process, people, and problem solving can transform your organization into a Lean, learning enterprise - the Toyota Way.
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