Cusumano and Nobeoka the bestselling coauthors of MICROSOFT SECRETS, reveal how Toyota and other leading automobile makers achieve remarkable savings and growth by using shared technology and organisational capabilities across multiple projects. THINKING BEYOND LEAN explains how to manage product development more strategically and efficiently, focusing on a concept the authors call "multi-project management". In contrast, most books on product development deal with how to manage products one at a time. The basic idea of multi-product management is to create new products that share key components but to utilise separate development teams that ensure each product will differ enough to attract different customers. Taking up where THE MACHINE THAT CHANGED THE WORLD left off, THINKING BEYOND LEAN will change the way leaders do business now and in the future.

Hospitals have long relied on the heroics of one brilliant nurse or doctor to save the day. Such heroics often result in temporary workarounds and quick fixes that leave not only patients and quality care at risk, but also increase costs. This is the story of an organization breaking that habit. Like a growing number of healthcare organizations around the world, ThedaCare, Inc. has been using lean thinking and the principles of the Toyota Production System to improve quality of care, reduce waste, and become more reliable. But lean thinking was incompatible with ThedaCare’s old top-down, hero-based system of management. Kim Barnas, former SVP of ThedaCare, shows us how she and her team created a management system that is stable and lean, to spur continuous improvement. Beyond Heroes shows the reader, step by step, how ThedaCare teams developed the system, using the stories of its doctors, nurses and administrators to illustrate. The book explores each of the eight essential components of the lean system, from front-line problem solving with the scientific method to daily team huddles and creating standard work for leaders all the way to the top of an organization. Finally, the author introduces four executives from healthcare systems across North America who have implemented ThedaCare’s system and share the lessons they learned along the way. Beyond Heroes is not just a call to action or an argument for a better healthcare system. It is a necessary roadmap through the rocky terrain ahead, one that healthcare leaders can customize to their special needs.

This book by Peter Béndek presents a strong case against the current practice of business operations improvement, based on numerous studies from the business world as well as insights from the most prestigious authors of the last fifty years. The author contests the applicability and indeed the relevance of the Toyota Production System and its spin-offs to the Western context, claiming that a revised approach is much better suited to taking our specific cultural conditions into account, while also combining increased transparency, speed, and sustainability of change with a robust value-creating capability. Dr. Béndek argues that this approach can have a far-reaching impact on corporate cultures by offering an all-encompassing learning system, one that provides a more coherent and actionable continuous improvement strategy than conventional approaches. The book offers an important guide to rethinking operations management, both in academia and business practice.

Exploring Lean manufacturing in a holistic manner, this book helps organizations to implement Lean principles successfully by offering theoretical, empirical and practical knowledge. It empirically demonstrates how a successful Lean initiative can improve organizational efficiency, and incorporates valuable primary research to substantiate findings. It argues that Lean principles need to be applied throughout the value chain in order to be successful , and suggests that these tools need to be aligned with culture and change management. Chapters examine issues including Lean cultures, impediments to Lean, Lean and performance measurement, and the impact of Lean. Viewing Lean as a never-ending journey, this book provides a valuable resource to practising Lean managers, and specialist researchers and students, and also offers an important reference for organizations embarking on their Lean voyage.

Two-time Academy Award winner Sir David Lean (1908–1991) was one of the most prominent directors of the twentieth century, responsible for the classics The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and Doctor Zhivago (1965). British-born Lean asserted himself in Hollywood as a major filmmaker with his epic storytelling and panoramic visions of history, but he started out as a talented film editor and director in Great Britain. As a result, he brought an art-house mentality to blockbuster films. Combining elements of biography and film criticism, Beyond the Epic: The Life and Films of David Lean uses screenplays and production histories to assess Lean’s body of work. Author Gene D. Phillips interviews actors who worked with Lean and directors who knew him, and their comments reveal new details about the director’s life and career. Phillips also explores Lean’s lesser-studied films, such as The Passionate Friends (1949), Hobson’s Choice (1954), and Summertime (1955). The result is an in-depth examination of the director in cultural, historical, and cinematic contexts. Lean’s approach to filmmaking was far different than that of many of his contemporaries. He chose his films carefully and, as a result, directed only sixteen films in a period of more than forty years. Those films, however, have become some of the landmarks of motion-picture history. Lean is best known for his epics, but Phillips also focuses on Lean’s successful adaptations of famous works of literature, including retellings of plays such as Brief Encounter (1945) and novels such as Great Expectations (1946), Oliver Twist (1948), and A Passage to India (1984). From expansive studies of war and strife to some of literature’s greatest high comedies and domestic dramas, Lean imbued all of his films with his unique creative vision. Few directors can match Lean’s ability to combine narrative sweep and psychological detail, and Phillips goes beyond Lean’s epics to reveal this unifying characteristic in the director’s body of work. Beyond the Epic is a vital assessment of a great director’s artistic process and his place in the film industry.

It is estimated that U.S. manufacturers are currently operating at only 65 percent effectiveness in implementing Lean production. Covering the fundamentals needed to be competitive in today‘s marketplace, Beyond Lean Production: Emphasizing Speed and Innovation to Beat the Competition provides readers with the tools to help their organizations achi

This book by Peter Béndek presents a strong case against the current practice of business operations improvement, based on numerous studies from the business world as well as insights from the most prestigious authors of the last fifty years. The author contests the applicability and indeed the relevance of the Toyota Production System and its spin-offs to the Western context, claiming that a revised approach is much better suited to taking our specific cultural conditions into account, while also combining increased transparency, speed, and sustainability of change with a robust value-creating capability. Dr. Béndek argues that this approach can have a far-reaching impact on corporate cultures by offering an all-encompassing learning system, one that provides a more coherent and actionable continuous improvement strategy than conventional approaches. The book offers an important guide to rethinking operations management, both in academia and business practice.