Best Sellers: Books – Industry and Operations Management – USA

Now Available at the Supply Chain Almanac Bookstore!

The Supply Chain Almanac Book Club regularly reviews Best Selling Books in various categories, both in Canada and the USA.

Here are the USA’s Best Sellers in Business – Industrial Relations, as at July 7, 2012, according to Amazon.com.

We have presented here detailed descriptions of each of the Top 10 Best Sellers. A list of the Top 25 Best Sellers, including these Top 10, may be found by clicking on this link.

There are some common themes that will become quite evident as you read through the list.

Lean remains the hottest topic on the planet. Of course, Lean thinking has moved far beyond its birthplace in manufacturing, and is moving into service industries such as banking and health care. There is some great reference material in the volumes listed below for the Lean Practitioner, as well as works that will bring the uninitiated up to speed quickly.

The close relationship between Lean and Six Sigma is similarly explored.

Health care is also a topic that is in very high demand, with no less than five of the Top 25 best selling titles dealing directly with that industry. Given the attention that is being paid in the USA and Canada on this important industry, this trend comes as no surprise.

Shingo Prize Winners:

Lean Hospitals by Mark Graban (# 7 on our list),  Understanding A3 Thinking: A Critical Component of Toyota’s PDCA Management System, by Durward K. Sobek II., Art Smalley, (#8 on our list), and Transforming Health Care: Virginia Mason Medical Center’s Pursuit of the Perfect Patient Experience, by Charles Kenney (# 9 on our list) are all winners of the prestigious Shingo Prize.

Here is a short video that shows Mark Graban introducing the newest edition of his book Lean Hospitals.

New Release:

Already in the Top 25 and ranked # 12 is a work that is bound to be a topic of conversation in Operations Management circles very soon. My advice is that you keep your eye on a brand new publication called the New Industrial Revolution by Peter Marsh – better yet, grab it while you can. It is not yet released in Canada.

The New Industrial Revolution: Consumers, Globalization and the End of Mass Production

By Peter Marsh

List Price:	$35.00
Price:	$24.61 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25.

 Product Description

The rapid emergence of China and India as prime locations for low-cost manufacturing has led some analysts to conclude that manufacturers in the “old economies”—the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Japan—are being edged out of a profitable future. But if countries that historically have been at the forefront of events in manufacturing can adapt adroitly, opportunities are by no means over, says the author of this timely book. Peter Marsh explores 250 years in the history of manufacturing, then examines the characteristics of the industrial revolution that is taking place right now.

The driving forces that influence what types of goods are made and who makes them are little understood, Marsh observes. He discusses the key changes in what is happening in manufacturing today, including advances in technology, a greater focus on tailor-made goods aimed at specific individuals and industry users, participation of many more countries in world manufacturing, and the growing importance of sustainable forms of production. With broad historical sweep and dozens of engaging examples, Marsh explains these changes and their import both for consumers making purchase choices and for manufacturers assessing how to participate successfully in the new industrial era.

To order, or for more information, please click here…

Without further delay, here are our Top 10:

Top 10 Best Sellers – Business – Industry and Operations Management

 

Product Description

The Lean Six Sigma Pocket Toolbook blends Lean and Six Sigma tools and concepts, providing expert advice on how to determine which tool within a “family” is best for different purposes. Packed with detailed examples and step-bystep instructions, it’s the ideal handy reference guide to help Green and Black Belts make the transition from the classroom to the field.

• Features brief summaries and examples of the 70 most important tools in Lean Six Sigma, such as “Pull,” “Heijunka,” and “Control Charts”
• Groups tools by purpose and usage
• Offers a quick, easy reference on using the DMAIC improvement cycle
• Provides comprehensive coverage in a compact, portable format

To order, or for more information, please click here…

Rating (out of 5) =  4.5 stars

Product Description

How to speed up business processes, improve quality, and cut costs in any industry

In factories around the world, Toyota consistently makes the highest-quality cars with the fewest defects of any competing manufacturer, while using fewer man-hours, less on-hand inventory, and half the floor space of its competitors. The Toyota Way is the first book for a general audience that explains the management principles and business philosophy behind Toyota’s worldwide reputation for quality and reliability.

Complete with profiles of organizations that have successfully adopted Toyota’s principles, this book shows managers in every industry how to improve business processes by:

• Eliminating wasted time and resources
• Building quality into workplace systems
• Finding low-cost but reliable alternatives to expensive new technology
• Producing in small quantities
• Turning every employee into a qualitycontrol inspector

To order, or for more information, please click here…

Product Description

Healthcare Kaizen focuses on the principles and methods of daily continuous improvement, or Kaizen, for healthcare professionals and organizations. Kaizen is a Japanese word that means “change for the better,” as popularized by Masaaki Imai in his 1986 book Kaizen: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success and through the books of Norman Bodek, both of whom contributed introductory material for this book.

In 1989, Dr. Donald M. Berwick, founder of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, endorsed the principles of Kaizen in the New England Journal of Medicine, describing it as “the continuous search for opportunities for all processes to get better.” This book shows how to make this goal a reality.

Healthcare Kaizen shares some of the methods used by numerous hospitals around the world, including Franciscan St. Francis Health, where co-author Joe Swartz has led these efforts. Most importantly, the book covers the management mindsets and philosophies required to make Kaizen work effectively in a hospital department or as an organization-wide program.

All of the examples in the book were shared by leading healthcare organizations, with over 200 full-color pictures and visual illustrations of Kaizen-based improvements that were initiated by nurses, physicians, housekeepers, senior executives and other staff members at all levels.

Healthcare Kaizen will be helpful for organizations that have embraced weeklong improvement events, but now want to follow the lead of ThedaCare, Virginia Mason Medical Center, and others who have moved beyond just doing events into a more complete management system based on Lean or the Toyota Production System.

It’s often said, without much reflection, that people hate change. The experiences shared in this book prove that people actually love change when they are fully engaged in the process, get to make improvements that improve patient care and make their day less frustrating, and when they don’t fear being laid off as a result of their improvements.

To order, or for more information, please click here…

Rating (out of 5) =  4.0 stars

Product Description

A quick introduction on how to use Lean Six Sigma to improve your workplace, meet your goals, and better serve your customers.

Lean Six Sigma combines the two most important improvement trends of our time: making work better (using Six Sigma) and making work faster (using Lean principles). In this plain-English guide, you’ll discover how this remarkable quality improvement method can give you the tools to identify and eliminate waste and quality problems in your own work area.

Packed with diagrams, cartoons, and real-life examples, What is Lean Six Sigma? reveals the “four keys” of Lean Six Sigma and how they apply to your own job:

• Delight your customers with speed and quality
• Improve your processes
• Work together for maximum gain
• Base decisions on data and facts

You’ll see the big picture of what your company hopes to gain with Lean Six Sigma, how it may affect your work area, and what it can mean to you personally.

To order, or for more information, please click here…

Customer Review Rating (out of 5) =  5.0 stars

Product Description

“Toyota Kata gets to the essence of how Toyota manages continuous improvement and human ingenuity, through its improvement kata and coaching kata. Mike Rother explains why typical companies fail to understand the core of lean and make limited progress—and what it takes to make it a real part of your culture.”
—Jeffrey K. Liker, bestselling author of The Toyota Way

“[Toyota Kata is] one of the stepping stones that will usher in a new era of management thinking.”
—The Systems Thinker

“How any organization in any industry can progress from old-fashioned management by results to a strikingly different and better way.”
—James P. Womack, Chairman and Founder, Lean Enterprise Institute

“Practicing the improvement kata is perhaps the best way we’ve found so far for actualizing PDCA in an organization.”
—John Shook, Chairman and CEO, Lean Enterprise Institute

This game-changing book puts you behind the curtain at Toyota, providing new insight into the legendary automaker’s management practices and offering practical guidance for leading and developing people in a way that makes the best use of their brainpower.

Drawing on six years of research into Toyota’s employee-management routines, Toyota Kata examines and elucidates, for the first time, the company’s organizational routines–called kata–that power its success with continuous improvement and adaptation. The book also reaches beyond Toyota to explain issues of human behavior in organizations and provide specific answers to questions such as:

• How can we make improvement and adaptation part of everyday work throughout the organization?
• How can we develop and utilize the capability of everyone in the organization to repeatedly work toward and achieve new levels of performance?
• How can we give an organization the power to handle dynamic, unpredictable situations and keep satisfying customers?

Mike Rother explains how to improve our prevailing management approach through the use of two kata: Improvement Kata–a repeating routine of establishing challenging target conditions, working step-by-step through obstacles, and always learning from the problems we encounter; and Coaching Kata: a pattern of teaching the improvement kata to employees at every level to ensure it motivates their ways of thinking and acting.

With clear detail, an abundance of practical examples, and a cohesive explanation from start to finish, Toyota Kata gives executives and managers at any level actionable routines of thought and behavior that produce superior results and sustained competitive advantage.

To order, or for more information, please click here…

Customer Review Rating (out of 5) =  4.0 stars

Product Description

This timely book investigates the experiences of employees at all levels of Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) during a ten-year period of dramatic organizational change. As Boeing transformed itself, workers and managers contended with repeated downsizing, shifting corporate culture, new roles for women, outsourcing, mergers, lean production, and rampant technological change. Drawing on a unique blend of quantitative and qualitative research, the authors consider how management strategies affected the well-being of Boeing employees, as well as their attitudes toward their jobs and their company. Boeing employees’ experience holds vital lessons for other employees, the leaders of other firms determined to thrive in today’s era of inescapable and growing global competition, as well as public officials concerned about the well-being of American workers and companies.

To order, or for more information, please click here…

Average Customer Review Rating (out of 5) =  5.0 stars

Product Description

Building on the success of the Shingo Prize-Winning first edition, Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Engagement, Second Edition explains how to use the Lean management system to improve safety, quality, access, and morale while reducing costs. Lean healthcare expert Mark Graban examines the challenges facing today’s health systems, including rising costs, falling reimbursement rates, employee retention, and patient safety.

The new edition of this international bestseller begins with an overview of Lean methods. It explains how Lean practices such as value stream mapping and process observation can help reduce wasted motion for caregivers, prevent delays for patients, and improve the long-term health of your organization. In addition to a new introduction from John Toussaint, this updated edition includes:

• New and updated material on identifying waste, A3 problem solving, employee suggestion management, and strategy deployment
• New case studies—including a new Kanban case study (Northampton General Hospital) and another that ties together the themes of standardized work, Kanban, 5S, visual management, and Lean leadership for the prevention of patient harm
• New examples and updated data throughout, including revised chapters on patient safety and preventing medical errors

Detailing the steps needed for a successful transition to a Lean culture, the book provides the understanding of Lean practices—including standardized work, error proofing, root cause problem solving, and daily improvement processes—needed to reduce common hospital errors. The balanced approach outlined in this book will guide you through the process of improving quality of service while reducing costs in your hospital.

*The Lean Certification and Oversight Appeals committee has approved Lean Hospitals as recommended reading for those in pursuit of Lean Bronze Certification from SME, AME, Shingo Prize, and ASQ.

To order, or for more information, please click here…

Average Customer Review Rating (out of 5) =  5.0 stars

Product Description

Winner of a 2009 Shingo Research and Professional Publication Prize. Notably flexible and brief, the A3 report has proven to be a key tool In Toyota’s successful move toward organizational efficiency, effectiveness, and improvement, especially within its engineering and R&D organizations. The power of the A3 report, however, derives not from the report itself, but rather from the development of the culture and mindset required for the implementation of the A3 system. In other words, A3 reports are not just an end product but are evidence of a powerful set of dynamics that is referred to as A3 Thinking.

In Understanding A3 Thinking, the authors first show that the A3 report is an effective tool when it is implemented in conjunction with a PDCA-based management philosophy. Toyota views A3 Reports as just one piece in their PDCA management approach. Second, the authors show that the process leading to the development and management of A3 reports is at least as important as the reports themselves, because of the deep learning and professional development that occurs in the process. And finally, the authors provide a number of examples as well as some very practical advice on how to write and review A3 reports.

To order, or for more information, please click here…

Average Customer Review Rating (out of 5) =  4.5 stars

Product Description

For decades, the manufacturing industry has employed the Toyota Production System — the most powerful production method in the world — to reduce waste, improve quality, reduce defects and increase worker productivity. In 2001, Virginia Mason Medical Center, an integrated healthcare delivery system in Seattle, Washington set out to achieve its compelling vision to become The Quality Leader and to fulfill that vision, adopted the Toyota Production System as its management method.

Winner of The Shingo Research and Professional Publication Award

Transforming Health Care: Virginia Mason Medical Center’s Pursuit of the Perfect Patient Experience takes you on the journey of of Virginia Mason Medical Center’s pursuit of the perfect patient experience through the application of lean principles, tools, and methodology. The results speak for themselves, including:

• An innovative patient safety alert system
• Reduction in professional liability insurance expenses
• Foundational changes that make it possible for nurses to spend 90% of their time with patients
• A computerized module that sorts through electronic medical charts and automatically identifies when disease management and preventative testing due

Over the last several years Virginia Mason has become internationally known for its journey towards perfection by applying the Toyota Production System to healthcare. The book takes readers step by step through Virginia Mason’s journey as it seeks to provide perfection to its customer – the patient. This book shows you how you use this system to transform your own organization.

To order, or for more information, please click here…

Average Customer Review Rating (out of 5) =  4.5 stars

Product Description

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