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

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.

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.

Most organizations’ change efforts focus solely on eliminating waste in specific departments. While this “lean paradigm” is a good place to start, true enterprise transformation goes much further. Based on years of research and implementation, Beyond the Lean Revolution provides a road map for achieving the kind of future-oriented results that enhance value to stakeholders. Authors Deborah Nightingale and Jayakanth help readers achieve this by asking them to address the big-picture questions like, What are the strategic objectives? How is the enterprise performing against those objectives? How should it be? Who are the stakeholders and what do they value? You’ll then learn to strategically position your responses to move toward an audacious vision for the future--one where every cog in the complex enterprise system of people, processes, and is successful. Illuminating examples will teach you how to ensure senior leadership remains committed, how to assess your enterprise’s current state, and how to analyze stakeholder values so you can plan for future growth. From inception to implementation and beyond, this book provides a holistic framework for bridging the gap from mere change--to genuine transformation.

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.

Presents Lamming's "lean supply" model and describes the development of the International Automotive Components Industry from 1900 to the present day. The book discusses shared technical change and innovation in this context, and explores vendor-customer relationships.

This book introduces the Look Forward approach to continuous improvement (CI). Look Forward is a management approach to CI that fosters an environment that infuses CI into the very fabric of the organisation. As a result, improvement is not an initiative or a project but rather a naturally occurring event that is anticipated, expected and prevalent. Look Forward is not a substitute for Six Sigma, Lean or Theory of Constraints (TOC), but rather is a necessary complement to each of these in order to assure self-perpetuating improvement that is ingrained in the corporate culture. Any business serious about improvement is going to consider these methodologies in the overall scope of their operations and the unique benefits they bring to the table. This book shows that for unbeatable sustained improvement they need to be intertwined with the Look Forward methodology.