Instead of being driven to meet preconceived accounting targets, the production systems of Toyota and Scania are governed by the three precepts guide all living systems: self-organization, interdependence, and diversity."--BOOK JACKET.

Waste has plagued almost every industrial-age firm for the past century. In this powerfully argued alternative to conventional cost management thinking, experts H. Thomas Johnson and Anders Bröms assert that any company can avoid the waste that is generated through excessive operating costs in the short run and excessive losses from market instability in the long run. To gain more secure levels of profitability, management must simply change how it thinks about work and how it organizes work. Profit Beyond Measure details how two extremely profitable manufacturers, Toyota and the Swedish truck maker Scania, have rejected the traditional mechanistic mindset of managing by results that generates waste. Johnson and Bröms explain how Toyota and Scania achieve their legendary cost advantage through a revolutionary concept they call managing by means (MBM). Instead of being driven to meet preconceived accounting targets, the production systems of Toyota and Scania are governed by the three precepts that guide all living systems: self-organization, interdependence, and diversity. Amid a wealth of new insights into Toyota's vaunted system, Johnson and Bröms introduce the tools of MBM to show how design, production, and profitability analysis are done to customer order. They demonstrate that by following the principles that emulate life systems, even a lean and profitable company can organize work to greatly lessen its long-term earnings instability and sharply reduce its short-run operating costs. Scania has achieved sixty-five years of financial stability and longevity in the face of fierce competition. Toyota has amassed a market value since 1988 that has rivaled -- or sometimes surpassed -- the American "Big Three" automakers combined. The principles that Johnson and Bröms set forth in Profit Beyond Measure can guarantee the same richer, longer life to any company that applies them.

Foundational introduction to the concept that organizations create major impacts by making small changes.

In the spring of 2010, Harvard Business School’s graduating class asked HBS professor Clay Christensen to address them—but not on how to apply his principles and thinking to their post-HBS careers. The students wanted to know how to apply his wisdom to their personal lives. He shared with them a set of guidelines that have helped him find meaning in his own life, which led to this now-classic article. Although Christensen’s thinking is rooted in his deep religious faith, these are strategies anyone can use. Since 1922, Harvard Business Review has been a leading source of breakthrough ideas in management practice. The Harvard Business Review Classics series now offers you the opportunity to make these seminal pieces a part of your permanent management library. Each highly readable volume contains a groundbreaking idea that continues to shape best practices and inspire countless managers around the world.

This practical and informative text demonstrates the importance of the relationship between a physically lean enterprise and accounting. It argues that to have continued success in an increasingly competitive marketplace, businesses must streamline both their physical operations and accounting methods.

A timeless classic of economic theory that remains fascinating and pertinent today, this is Frank Knight's famous explanation of why perfect competition cannot eliminate profits, the important differences between "risk" and "uncertainty," and the vital role of the entrepreneur in profitmaking. Based on Knight's PhD dissertation, this 1921 work, balancing theory with fact to come to stunning insights, is a distinct pleasure to read. FRANK H. KNIGHT (1885-1972) is considered by some the greatest American scholar of economics of the 20th century. An economics professor at the University of Chicago from 1927 until 1955, he was one of the founders of the Chicago school of economics, which influenced Milton Friedman and George Stigler.

W. Edwards Deming was a moral philosopher, prophet, and sage with profound insights into the management of organizations and the art of leadership and living. He also was a composer of liturgical music, a singer, and a musician. Edward Martin Baker, one of Demings most valued associates, shares his deep understanding of Demings System of Profound Knowledge, a set of theories and philosophies that helped reshape the management practices of many large multinational corporations. This included bringing organizations to economic health and individuals to spiritual and psychological health by attaining dignity and joy in work. Baker provides an accurate depiction of the philosophy as a musical score: first movement: theory of knowledge second movement: appreciation for a system third movement: knowledge about variation fourth movement: knowledge of psychology Baker shows how the system can be viewed as a mapa mental representation of the territory that managers and others must navigate as they play their various roles. The Symphony of Profound Knowledge and what Deming taught contradicts whats learned in school and in the management of organizations. His teachings encourage the reevaluation of what is seen as fact. It provides a thorough understanding of the Deming philosophy and how to apply those concepts to life.