Cultural Kaizen: The story of how simple concepts can transform an organizations culture, engagement and bottom-line.

Cultural Kaizen: The story of how simple concepts can transform an organizations culture, engagement and bottom-line. Review

Cultural Kaizen™ is a business novel that focuses on the lean transformation of a process manufacturing site and subsequent cultural impact of the transformation on the people who work there. The book’s introductory chapters focus on an operations manager’s personal struggle while working at a site that has a severely negative culture. The site is undergoing a ‘fake lean’ transformation (Focused on the tools; not the business process). The first two chapters demonstrate the effects of a negative culture on an employee. The operations manager is offered a new position as the plant manager of a ‘broken’ chemical plant. This is a large step for the new plant manager, but he agrees because he will do anything to get out of the negative cultural situation he is currently experiencing. The plant manager arrives on site and determines that a lean transformation is what the site needs to improve their performance. The plant manager uses his previous experiences as an example of “What not to do?” Above all else, he anchors the transformation with a respect for people. The respect for people was the keystone item missing in his previous role. The book continues to document the trials and tribulations of the plant leading up through the conclusion of their first kaizen event and ending with a gemba walk one year later. The major themes explored in the book are: • A focus on the role of the front-line associate and a respect for their position • The effects of a negative culture on team members vs. a positive culture • The process of running a kaizen event, in a process manufacturing site, with a focus on the social and emotional effects that is above and beyond the mechanics of the kaizen process. • Mass production systems vs. lean production systems and their effect on the organizational culture

The Illustrated Toyota Production System: A Process Improvement Methodology

The Illustrated Toyota Production System: A Process Improvement Methodology Review

The Toyota Production System has been studied by people eager to find its secret to success for many years. Too often we shout "Eureka!" and run off to implement the set of techniques or tools that seem to fit our situation that best. When this approach is only partially successful, we make excuses that "we are different" than Toyota. In fact, all of our businesses and processes are more similar to Toyota than we would like to admit. What Toyota does differently and better than most of us is to learn from others and from themselves, studying both failures and successes. Exploring the keys to the Toyota Production System and its success requires that we keep an open mind and seek to learn from many sources. Book 2 of The Illustrated Toyota Production System: A Process Improvement Methodology provides immediately useful ideas and tool for continuous improvement that can be applied again and again to reduce waste and improve productivity, safety, and quality.

The Complete Lean Enterprise: Value Stream Mapping for Administrative and Office Processes

The Complete Lean Enterprise: Value Stream Mapping for Administrative and Office Processes Review

"Winner of the 2005 Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing Research"

Most lean initiatives conducted by manufacturers are focused mostly on shop-floor activities — mapping the value stream of raw material to the shop-floor customer. Much of the untapped potential for productivity improvements lies, however, in non-production areas — where the value stream is administrative (i.e., "order to cash"). These "office" value streams directly support the daily production needs of an enterprise.

Beau Keyte and Drew Locher's new book, The Complete Lean Enterprise: Value Stream Mapping for Administrative and Office Processes, offers a step-by-step approach to applying lean initiatives to the administrative and office environment. It's a must read for leaders looking to improve their production support activities within their order-to-cash value stream. The Complete Lean Enterprise is a valuable tool in applying value stream mapping (VSM) to non-production areas, identifying office wastes, establishing performance metrics, speeding up administrative workflow, and improving office efficiency.

Value Engineering Synergies with Lean Six Sigma: Combining Methodologies for Enhanced Results

Value Engineering Synergies with Lean Six Sigma: Combining Methodologies for Enhanced Results Review

Lean Six Sigma (LSS), Design for Six Sigma (DFSS), and Value Engineering (VE) have a proven track record of success for solving problems and improving efficiency. Depending on the situation, integrating these approaches can provide results that exceed the benefits of each individual approach. Value Engineering Synergies with Lean Six Sigma: Combining Methodologies for Enhanced Results describes how to integrate these dynamic tools to achieve unprecedented improvements and break down the organizational stovepipes that can occur when different offices are assigned responsibility for different problem-solving methods.

The book identifies opportunities where readers can integrate these approaches to go beyond what is currently possible with the individual approaches. Explaining the VE methodology, it supplies a high-level discussion of LSS and DFSS. Next, it compares VE with LSS and identifies the different opportunities for synergies that can provide your organization with a competitive edge.

• Includes detailed LSS-VE cross-reference charts
• Contains product- and process-oriented VE material designed for LSS black belt training
• Provides a list of the most commonly used LSS, DFSS, and VE tools

The authors describe VE and LSS in a way that is different from, but consistent with, the current literature. To facilitate comparison, the book graphically depicts VE and LSS and maps the two tools into one another to provide you with a clear understanding of the circumstances and types of problems where integrating these techniques will be most effective. The ideas and synergies presented in this book can help industry professionals and those in government accelerate the adoption of efficiencies in their operations.

Utilizing the 3Ms of Process Improvement in Healthcare: A Roadmap to High Reliability Using Lean, Six Sigma, and Change Leadership

Utilizing the 3Ms of Process Improvement in Healthcare: A Roadmap to High Reliability Using Lean, Six Sigma, and Change Leadership Review

Leading change in the right direction and sustaining that change is extremely difficult without managing the relevant measures, especially in today's healthcare environment. This book details how to use the 3Ms (Measure, Manage to Measure, Make-it-Easy) of change leadership in healthcare. It includes healthcare case studies that illustrate the proper application of the 3Ms. Complete with forms and templates to facilitate application of the 3Ms, the text describes a culture change method that is based on changing behaviors.

Overhaul the Sales Process: Creating a More Efficient & Effective Sales Engine (Volume 1)

Overhaul the Sales Process: Creating a More Efficient & Effective Sales Engine (Volume 1) Review

In Overhaul the Sales Process, you'll thoroughly explore the traditional sales model that most companies use to approach selling; understand where it breaks down; and, gain insights into a better sales model that is more productive, reliable, efficient and psychologically healthy. Once you overhaul your sales process, you will deliver value in the very way that you sell.

Pivotal Swing -: How to Fundamentally Change the Game of Baseball !! or - How 'YOU' Can Help Change the Game of Baseball !!

Pivotal Swing -: How to Fundamentally Change the Game of Baseball !! or - How 'YOU' Can Help Change the Game of Baseball !! Review

The general objective of the book is to improve the hitting process. The specific object inside of that is to see .400 hitters in MLB again. This book is about change! And the context is baseball, more specifically, the “hitting” process. I have strategically and effectively blended the art and science of hitting by developing a robust design methodology that will impact the game of baseball forever. Caution: if you read this book, you will never think about hitting the same way ever again. Legitimate, positive change in any endeavor is not possible without process improvement methods. This book provides an actionable Six Sigma - process improvement methodology that, if applied according to the detailed instructions presented, will result in improved hitting performance. Even if you have never played the game of baseball, this book will provide insight into how anyone can go about improving any aspect of their life. This book is like a David & Goliath situation. I (as David) am an ‘outsider’ of the formal baseball industry (as Goliath). The book is to show how ‘David’ can and should take-on (challenge) the huge ‘Goliath’. With knowledge, specific skill and precise execution a ‘regular’ person faced ‘Goliath’ and slew him. We are told in the Bible some of the history of ‘David’. We are not told the history of ‘Goliath’. I think that is applicable here too. To me it is important for the readers to know enough about the path I have been down to be able to see how ‘David’ could put all these pieces together and improve something the ‘Goliaths’ (inside experts) haven’t been able to do. My experience includes extensive work with Six Sigma and process improvement (PI) application and deployment in the corporate world. In that world I have seen Six Sigma and PI applied to every process imaginable. There have been very dramatic results in some cases. It was no stretch for me to decide to apply these methods to the hitting process. I am very excited about how successful the effort was. The challenge now is to communicate the development and results to those that can benefit from it. There are various ways the readers can join the endeavor. As a result of extensive work, it is clear that process improvement (scientific methods) tools have not been applied to the hitting process in the past. The book gets into the details of some very easy items that should have been done long ago if those methods had been used. It also shows the development of new elements needed that improve the most important output of the hitting process. A clue on that is that it isn’t base hits. They are very important for historical purposes but that is not the best measure of whether the hitting process is optimized or can be improved. The value of a better hitting process is very high. Players of all ages have been trying to improve since the start of the game. The difference today is the application of PI tools. The use of practical and logical Six Sigma methods allows us to see any process dramatically differently than without them. As described in the book I believe the Pivotal SwingTM method is a core level process improvement. If the 2nd level testing confirms that, we will then be able to gather data on how much. The statistics are clear that a change of 30 points will be enough to ‘fundamentally change the game’. If the change is in that range or higher, a player or team that doesn’t use it may not be able to compete with those that do. As a player, you can bet you wouldn’t catch me on the short-end of that stick. Competition is what this world is all about. In many aspects of life we are seeking to gain a ‘competitive advantage’ that will set us apart from the crowd. Everyone wants to win the ‘World Series’ or be a ‘Champion’ in some endeavor. Those that choose to implement and perfect the Pivotal SwingTM will have a ‘competitive advantage’. Roger U. Hart www.PivotalSwing.com