Best Selling Books – Industry and Operations Management – Canada

While Lean practices have been successfully implemented into the process industry with excellent results for over 20 years (including the author’s own award winning example at Exxon Chemical), that industry has been especially slow in adopting Lean. Part of the problem is that the process industry needs its own version of Lean. The larger part of the problem is resistance to transformational change, a barrier that can only be overcome with effective leadership and results-oriented planning that engages rather than excludes all stakeholders.

Winner of a 2012 Shingo Prize!

Written by Raymond Floyd, an unparalleled leader of Lean transformations, Liquid Lean: Developing Lean Culture in the Process Industries provides potential process industry change agents with the no-nonsense guide needed to eliminate waste and achieve sustainable optimal efficiency. Presenting lessons in lean as they apply within the liquid industries, the book focuses on developing the four measures of Lean as defined by the Shingo Award:

1. Business Results
2. Consistent Lean Enterprise Culture
3. Continuous Process Improvement
4. Cultural Enablers

Illustrated with his own success stories, Floyd describes business results, Lean enterprise thinking, and policy deployment in process industry terms. He offers detailed theory, practice, and examples of continuous process improvement, and describes the leadership and defines the ethics needed to evolve and sustain Lean transformation. Floyd lays out the specific steps needed during the first six months of transformation and the benchmarks to be achieved during the first two years of implementation. All companies can benefit from Lean; this book makes sure that those who want it, know how.

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Customer Review Rating (out of 5) =  5.0 stars

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“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 Kataexamines 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.

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

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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.

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8. Visual Systems: Harnessing the Power of a Visual Workplace [Paperback]

By Gwendolyn D. Galsworth (Author)

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9. The 7 Kata: Toyota Kata, TWI, and Lean Training, By Conrad Soltero, Patrice Boutier