World-Class, Lean Performance in the SMEs - Small and Medium Enterprises - by Carlo Scodanibbio, Industrial & Business Consultant - Lean Management Consultant
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Carlo Scodanibbio
Industrial & Business Consultant
Lean Management Consultant

bibliography:
books & reading material


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Recommended Bibliography:
Reading Books for the Project-driven/Construction Industry
These are some of the books, selected from the Amazon.com library, I would recommend to Project/Construction people to better understand the World Class Project Performance and the Lean Project Management/Lean Construction Management principles. Click on each book's link for more details.
NB: although several books I have selected seem to be related to the Manufacturing Industry only, the principles illustrated in those books are fully pertinent and well applicable to the Project/Construction Industry.

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The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production

by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos
When The Machine That Changed the World was first published in 1990, Toyota was half the size of General Motors. Today Toyota is passing GM as the world's largest auto maker and is the most consistently successful global enterprise of the past fifty years. This management classic was the first book to reveal Toyota's lean production system that is the basis for its enduring success.
Now reissued with a new Foreword and Afterword, Machine contrasts two fundamentally different business systems -- lean versus mass, two very different ways of thinking about how humans work together to create value. Based on the largest and most thorough study ever undertaken of any industry -- MIT's five-year, fourteen-country International Motor Vehicle Program -- this book describes the entire managerial system of lean production.

Nearly twenty years ago, Womack, Jones, and Roos provided a comprehensive description of the entire lean system. They exhaustively documented its advantages over the mass production model pioneered by General Motors and predicted that lean production would eventually triumph. Indeed, they argued that it would triumph not just in manufacturing but in every value-creating activity from health care to retail to distribution.

Today The Machine That Changed the World provides enduring and essential guidance to managers and leaders in every industry seeking to transform traditional enterprises into exemplars of lean success.

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Lean Thinking : Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation

James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones
In the revised and updated edition of Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, authors James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones provide a thoughtful expansion upon their value-based business system based on the Toyota model. Along the way they update their action plan in light of new research and the increasing globalization of manufacturing, and they revisit some of their key case studies (most of which still derive, however, from the automotive, aerospace, and other manufacturing industries). The core of the lean model remains the same in the new edition. All businesses must define the "value" that they produce as the product that best suits customer needs. The leaders must then identify and clarify the "value stream," the nexus of actions to bring the product through problems solving, information management, and physical transformation tasks. Next, "lean enterprise" lines up suppliers with this value stream. "Flow" traces the product across departments. "Pull" then activates the flow as the business re-orients towards the pull of the customer's needs. Finally, with the company reengineered towards its core value in a flow process, the business re-orients towards "perfection," rooting out all the remaining muda (Japanese for "waste") in the system.

Despite the authors' claims to "actionable principles for creating lasting value in any business during any business conditions," the lean model is not demonstrated with broad applications in the service or retail industries. But those manager's whose needs resonate with those described in the Lean Thinking case studies will find a host of practical guidelines for streamlining their processes and achieving manufacturing efficiencies.

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Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together

by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones
American and European feelings towards Japanese business practices have varied dramatically through the last few decades. In the late 1970s and 1980s, a wave of fear swept through many Western leaders as they contemplated Japan's stunningly rapid rise from the ashes of World War II. Then more recently, as the 1990s and early 2000s saw stagflation gripping the Japanese economy, and knowledge-based innovation in technology and financial services bringing unprecedented prosperity to many Western countries, a feeling of vindication (and sometimes smugness) returned to those same corporate chieftains. Most recently, perhaps, the pendulum of conventional wisdom has begun to swing back to a middle position, in between the extremes of adulation and disdain: respect for the positive contributions of Japanese business culture, without blind acceptance. It's with this spirit that the authors of Lean Solutions offer their insightful observations about process design and service delivery in modern companies.
James Womack and Daniel Jones are well-recognized contributors to the lean-business movement. Lean Solutions is the consultants' fifth book together, following earlier works like Lean Thinking and The Machine That Changed the World, and springs as before from their keen interest in Japanese business methods and philosophy. What compels them to write yet another book, though, given the well-established literature on lean business?

The authors offer an intriguing description of their mission at the beginning of this latest book. Principles of lean design have in fact been adopted by many Western businesses, they acknowledge, and manufacturing quality has steadily risen as a result. Yet customers remain often dissatisfied with their experiences. The cause? To Womack and Jones, the answer rests in a myopic application of lean business principles: companies have successfully improved their manufacturing and product-development environments, but they have not had a large enough view of the overall customer relationship, and of the need for leanness in all aspects of companies' interactions with customers.

Put another way: in Lean Solutions, readers find a new and much broader conceptualization of how lean-business methods--which, to be fair to Womack and Jones, have evolved so that they can claim a global heritage as much as a Far Eastern one--might apply across entire customer experiences, rather than just manufacturing processes. The structure of Lean Solutions centers on 6 requests that the authors believe customers implicitly demand from their vendors: "Solve my problem completely; don't waste my time; provide exactly what I want; deliver value where I want it; supply value when I want it; and reduce the number of decisions I must make to solve my problems."

With a compelling mix of case studies, and illuminating thought experiments in industries ranging as widely as shoe manufacturing, health care delivery, auto repair, and grocery shopping, Womack and Jones walk readers through careful explanations of how lean thinking might be expanded beyond the factory floor to broader business problems. Lean Solutions isn't for all readers. It rests on an appreciation of the large cumulative effects that many small processes can have on business, and it requires patience from those who want to learn the secrets of lean business.

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Going Lean: How the Best Companies Apply Lean Manufacturing Principles to Shatter Uncertainty, Drive Innovation, and Maximize Profits

by Stephen A. Ruffa
Going Lean sets aside the notion that efficient operations and powerful inno­vations are only possible when business is steady and demand is growing. Instead, companies must learn that sudden shifts or unpredictable conditions need not undermine their results. Led by a new breed of companies -Toyota, Wal-Mart, and Southwest Airlines--a powerful, yet unexpected mindset is reshaping the rules for business competitiveness. By using Lean Dynamics TM--based on the now-famous Toyota Production System--companies everywhere can thrive in virtually any environment. In Going Lean, readers will learn how to:
- become broadly effective in creating and sustaining value
- set a critical foundation for achieving sustained excellence
- identify sources of lag and create robust value streams that thrive in today's dynamic conditions
- describe the underlying techniques to maintain steady and predictable flow
- create a system based on "pull," or external demand that consistently introduces new innovation even during severe downturns
- strive for perfection
- deliver industry-leading returns

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Lean Transformation: How to Change Your Business into a Lean Enterprise

by Bruce A. Henderson, Jorge L. Larco, and Stephen H. Martin
Known in manufacturing among those striving to maximize productivity and create pull-scheduling of production as "the yellow book," Lean Transformation: How to Change Your Business into a Lean Enterprise is used across the globe by companies as they switch to lean production and management by empowered teams. Touted by lean production experts everywhere as practical, down-to-earth, and easy to read, it warns of cultural issues that are almost certain to arise, and gives management step by step instructions as it explains clearly in terms anyone can understand such concepts as continuous flow, value stream mapping, kanban, kaizen, six sigma, just-in-time (JIT), techniques for converting to quick set-ups, and other pillars of the Toyota Production System. Indeed, Toyota may have been the first, but Toyota is not the only company that excels at lean manufacturing. Dell Computers provides another model of a successful lean enterprise as do Harley-Davidson and Pella Windows. Learn why initial improvements of 40 percent in direct labor productivity and a 50 percent reduction in the space required for manufacturing are routine when production and assembly are converted to continuous flow. Lean Transformation is chock full of real life examples of value stream mapping, how kanban can resolve material supply issues, how kaizen brainstorming can result in startling improvements overnight, how just-in-time (JIT) frees mountains of money tied up in work-in-progress, why six sigma quality needs to be built in and not inspected in, how bottlenecks can be eliminated, kanban snafus spotted before they happen, and how instilling a championship mentality in cross-functional teams can lead to increased productivity and continuous improvement that doesn't stop after the initial kaizen event.
It doesn't take a genius to know that the low cost producer that meets customers "want" dates 99% of the time yet carries only two days inventory has a tremendous competitive advantage. So put value stream mapping, just-in-time (JIT), six sigma, kanban, kaizen, continuous flow, empowered teams, and all the other techniques you'll learn about in Lean Transformation to work. Order a copy for everyone involved in your transformation into a lean enterprise.

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Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions

by David Mann
Lean production has been proven unbeatable in organizing production operations, yet the majority of attempts to implement lean end in disappointing results. The critical factor so often overlooked is that lean implementation requires day-to-day, hour-by-hour management practices and skills that leaders in conventional batch-and-queue environments are neither familiar nor comfortable with.
Creating a Lean Culture helps lean leaders succeed in their personal batch-to-lean transformation. It provides a practical guide to implementing the missing links needed to sustain a lean implementation. Mann provides critical guidance on developing and using the key elements of a lean management system, including: leader standard work, visual controls, daily accountability processes, maintaining a process focus, managing key HR issues, and much more. In addition, a questionnaire is included to help assess current management practices and monitor progress.

Highlights: Distinguishes the much-discussed, abstract concept of "lean culture" from the concrete, implementable practices of lean management. Describes and illustrates 4 key principles of lean management: leader standard work; visual controls; daily accountability process, and discipline. Shows how visual controls bring process focus to life, tie in lean's requirement for highly disciplined execution, and make leaders' new jobs far easier to explain, model and evaluate. Moves beyond models and theories of lean management to show how to implement the daily practices that are the key to implementing and sustaining a lean transformation. Lots of case examples, figures and photographs.

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Lean Performance ERP Project Management: Implementing the Virtual Lean Enterprise, Second Edition

by Brian J. Carroll
Lean thinking is too often narrowly focused on physical processes, causing serious shortcomings, which limit Lean’s substantial benefits. Revised to consider the emerging global economy, Lean Performance ERP Project Management, Second Edition integrates strategy, people, process, and information technology into a project management methodology that applies Lean Thinking to all processes. It leverages Lean principles, tools, and practices to improve and then continuously improve management decision processes, information/support processes, and their linkages to Lean physical processes.
New in the Second Edition:
- Provides project managers an overview of lean benefits and challenges to present to Lean Sponsors and Lean Transformation Steering Committees
- Presents a strategy for ERP project managers dealing with Chinese-based manufacturing
- Includes a refreshed discussion of current events in the transition to lean in the global economy
- Discusses new developments such as e-kanban, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Customer TAKT, and Operational TAKT
- Features a case study of the Lean Commerce system implemented by Toyota North America

Based on the author’s practical management and consulting experience, Lean Performance ERP Project Management: Implementing the Virtual Lean Enterprise clearly demonstrates that a lean tool kit requires the participation from all departments of an organization, from product development to fulfillment.

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

by Beau Keyte and Drew Locher
Review
"...a strategic lean tool that connects the value stream management of manufacturing processes to the rest of the enterprise!" -- Ron Fardell, Director of Lean, Textron, Inc.

"...it deserves a spot next to Learning to See." -- Peter Ward, Professor of Operations Management, Fisher College of Business, Ohio State University

"...the next generation of waste identification and elimination is in the business support functions." -- Dr. Ross E. Robson, Executive Director, Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing, Utah State University

"The Complete Lean Enterprise is an excellent tool to guide the enterprising manager to a new lean process solution." -- Kent Sears, Vice President, Manufacturing Processes and Lean Implementation, General Motors Corporation

"Their method is practical, pragmatic and can easily be transferred to others. ... This is the Rosetta stone for VSM." -- Tom Berghan, Manager, Lean Systems, Esterline Korry

"The Complete Lean Enterprise is an excellent tool to guide the enterprising manager to a new lean process solution. The step-by-step instructions are easy for the beginner to follow, and the lean examples, team exercises, and mapping tips add a credible voice of experience to the manuscript. And, best of all, It works!" Kent Sears, VP, Manufacturing Processes and Lean Implementation, GM 06/01/04

"Keyte and Locher have provided a valuable contribution for identifying strategic operational value streams for administrative and office processes. They demonstrate that the next generation of waste identification and elimination is in the business support functions." Dr. Ross E. Robson, Executive Director, Shingo Prize, Utah State University 06/01/04

"This book is a must-read for leaders struggling to remove waste, reduce time, and improve responsiveness in white-collar processes. I expect to see well-worn copies of The Complete Lean Enterprise in offices everywhere — it deserves a spot next to Learning to See." Peter Ward, Prof. of Operations Mgmt, Fisher College of Business 06/01/04

"Their method is practical, pragmatic and can easily be transferred to others. This is the book. This is the Rosetta stone for VSM." Tom Berghan, Manager, Lean Systems, Esterline Korry 06/01/04

"Beau and Drew have developed a strategic lean tool that connects the value stream management of manufacturing processes to the rest of the enterprise! This tool applies to Office and Manufacturing processes, providing a systematic approach to eliminate waste along the entire product delivering value stream." Ron Fardell, Director of Lean, Textron, Inc. 06/01/04

"this is a very welcome book in an expanding field. It is clear and easy to read, even for non-quality and non-lean people. Used well, it could be the lever by which significant further savings and improved business capability are built into many different enterprises."

Product Description
THE COMPLETE LEAN ENTERPRISE: Value Stream Mapping for Administrative and Office Processes Beau Keyte and Drew Locher This new book provides a step-by-step approach to applying lean initiatives to the office environment. This title is a must read for those looking to improve their production support activities by identifying waste, establishing performance metrics, speeding up administrative workflow, and improving office efficiency.

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The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement

by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox
Alex Rogo manages a failing manufacturing plant, and his marriage is on shaky ground due to his long work hours. When his district manager tells him that profits must increase or the plant will be closed, Alex realizes he needs help. He turns to Jonah, a former professor, whom Alex discovers is now a management consultant (although Jonah's field is physics). With the help of the enigmatic Jonah and the plant staff, Alex turns the plant around while at the same time abandoning many management principles he previously thought were ironclad. This multivoiced presentation is lively and interesting and offers food for thought for managers in any field. The performances are natural and unaffected, with sound effects to enhance the illusion of reality. Although it is a novel, this title is more appropriate for business collections.

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Theory of Constraints

by Eliyahu M. Goldratt
Theory of Constraints walks you through the crucial stages of a continuous program: the five steps of focusing; the process of change; how to prove effect-cause-effect; and how to invent simple solutions to complex problems. Equally important, the author reveals the devastating impact that an organization's psychology can have on the process of improvements. Theory of Constraints is a crucial document for understanding what it takes to achieve manufacturing breakthroughs.

About the Author
One of the world's most sought after business leaders - author and educator, Dr. Eli Goldratt. Eli Goldratt had been described by Fortune Magazine as a "guru to industry" and by Business Week as a "genius." His charismatic, stimulating, yet sometimes unconventional style has captured the attention of audiences throughout the world. Eli is a true thinker who provokes others to think.
Eli Goldratt is the creator of the Theory of Constraints (TOC) and is the author of 8 books, including the business best sellers The Goal, It's Not Luck, and Critical Chain. Goldratt's Theory of Constraints is used by thousands of companies, and is taught in hundreds of colleges, universities, and business schools. His books have sold over 3 million copies and have been translated into 23 languages. Goldratt's fascinating work as an author, educator and business pioneer had resulted in the promulgation of TOC into many facets of society and has transformed management thinking throughout the world.

coverIn Search of Excellence : Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies
by Thomas Peters
.........Peters and Waterman studied more than 43 successful American companies. The companies specialized in a number of areas: consumer goods, high technology, and services. What he discovered was that regardless of how different each company was, they shared eight basic principles of management that anyone can use on their way to success........

coverThe Fifth Discipline : The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization
by Peter M. Senge
Not only is the learning organization a new source of competitive advantage, it also offers a marvelously empowering approach to work, one which promises that, as Archimedes put it, "with a lever long enough... single-handed I can move the world....."

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A Passion for Excellence: The Leadership Difference

by Nancy Austin and Thomas J Peters
A Passion For Excellence is the single most existing, inspiring, career-transforming book ever published for people who want to get ahead. It takes you behind, the scenes in some of the most successful organizations and analyzes what makes them distinctive.Here are real people, real companies, real numbers. Here is what you need to know about the crucial elements of success: constant innovation, staying in touch with customers, encouraging the contributions of everyone in the company, and maintaining the integrity that is basic to leadership. Here are the secrets of building excellence.

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Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution

by Tom Peters
From Publishers Weekly
Addressing American industry's continuing decline in foreign and domestic markets, Peters (In Pursuit of Excellence) here offers a detailed plan for unstructured business activity in which some readers will see not only chaos but anarchy. Nevertheless, the author's perception of high quality as a determining consumer motivation and his radical recipe for achieving it are persuasive. Noting that smaller service-oriented businesses like Federal Express prosper while mammoth GE and GM falter, Peters would largely eliminate top-heavy management superstructures in favor of creative worker involvement and customer participation, with supervisors on hand to encourage. This textbook cites dozens of specific business situations and person-to-person responses in support of its step-by-step instructions for turning a failing enterprise aroundif those involved can act fast. 150,000 first printing; Fortune Book Club main selection.

From Library Journal
In contrast to the mass of oversimplified business survival manuals, this one justifies itself. After demonstrating in his previous books ( In Search of Excellence , with Robert Waterman, and A Passion for Excellence ) what he calls the "nice-to-do" in order for an organization to achieve success, Peters now proposes the "must-do" to survive in explosively changing times. His 45 "prescriptions" for survival boil down to enlightened leadership through innovation and flexibility in management style and organizational structure. Essential. A.J. Anderson, G . S.L . I . S . , Simmons Coll., Boston. Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

coverThe Benchmarking Workbook: Adapting the Best Practices for Performance Improvement
by Gregory H. Watson
Managers today need benchmarking to anticipate trends and maintain competitive advantage. This practical workbook shows you how to do your own benchmarking study. Watson's discussion includes a case study that takes you through each step of the benchmarking process, raises thought-provoking questions, and provides examples of how to use forms for a benchmarking study.

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The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

by Malcolm Gladwell
"The best way to understand the dramatic transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life," writes Malcolm Gladwell, "is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do." Although anyone familiar with the theory of memetics will recognize this concept, Gladwell's The Tipping Point has quite a few interesting twists on the subject. For example, Paul Revere was able to galvanize the forces of resistance so effectively in part because he was what Gladwell calls a "Connector": he knew just about everybody, particularly the revolutionary leaders in each of the towns that he rode through. But Revere "wasn't just the man with the biggest Rolodex in colonial Boston," he was also a "Maven" who gathered extensive information about the British. He knew what was going on and he knew exactly whom to tell. The phenomenon continues to this day--think of how often you've received information in an e-mail message that had been forwarded at least half a dozen times before reaching you.

Gladwell develops these and other concepts (such as the "stickiness" of ideas or the effect of population size on information dispersal) through simple, clear explanations and entertainingly illustrative anecdotes, such as comparing the pedagogical methods of Sesame Street and Blue's Clues, or explaining why it would be even easier to play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon with the actor Rod Steiger. Although some readers may find the transitional passages between chapters hold their hands a little too tightly, and Gladwell's closing invocation of the possibilities of social engineering sketchy, even chilling, The Tipping Point is one of the most effective books on science for a general audience in ages. It seems inevitable that "tipping point," like "future shock" or "chaos theory," will soon become one of those ideas that everybody knows--or at least knows by name.

From Publishers Weekly
The premise of this facile piece of pop sociology has built-in appeal: little changes can have big effects; when small numbers of people start behaving differently, that behavior can ripple outward until a critical mass or "tipping point" is reached, changing the world. Gladwell's thesis that ideas, products, messages and behaviors "spread just like viruses do" remains a metaphor as he follows the growth of "word-of-mouth epidemics" triggered with the help of three pivotal types. These are Connectors, sociable personalities who bring people together; Mavens, who like to pass along knowledge; and Salesmen, adept at persuading the unenlightened. (Paul Revere, for example, was a Maven and a Connector). Gladwell's applications of his "tipping point" concept to current phenomena--such as the drop in violent crime in New York, the rebirth of Hush Puppies suede shoes as a suburban mall favorite, teenage suicide patterns and the efficiency of small work units--may arouse controversy. For example, many parents may be alarmed at his advice on drugs: since teenagers' experimentation with drugs, including cocaine, seldom leads to hardcore use, he contends, "We have to stop fighting this kind of experimentation. We have to accept it and even embrace it." While it offers a smorgasbord of intriguing snippets summarizing research on topics such as conversational patterns, infants' crib talk, judging other people's character, cheating habits in schoolchildren, memory sharing among families or couples, and the dehumanizing effects of prisons, this volume betrays its roots as a series of articles for the New Yorker, where Gladwell is a staff writer: his trendy material feels bloated and insubstantial in book form. Agent, Tina Bennett of Janklow & Nesbit. Major ad/promo. (Mar.). Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

coverValue Engineering : Practical Applications...for Design, Construction, Maintenance & Operations
by Alphonse D. Isola
.....a complete system for understanding and conducting Value Engineering and Life Cycle Costing Studies - for design, construction, and facilities operation. Along with step-by-step instructional chapters, readers get seven case studies on major facility types, with currently applicable data and examples.

cover The Idea Book : Improvement Through Tei/Total Employee Involvement
by Japan Human Relations Association
At last, a book showing how to create Total Employee Involvement (TEI) and get hundreds of ideas from each employee every year to improve every aspect of your organization. Gathering improvement ideas from your entire workforce is a must for global competitiveness. The Idea Book, heavily illustrated, is a hands-on teaching tool for workers and supervisors to refer to again and again. Perfect for study groups, too.

cover In Search of Excellence in Project Management : Successful Practices in High Performance Organizations
by Harold Kerzner
A growing body of real-world evidence is proving most of the commonly held criticisms of project management to be unfounded. Concerns about misused time and resources, inefficient organizations, customer and employee dissatisfaction, and endless unforeseeable problems are being overshadowed by case after case of streamlined resource management, quicker reactions to problems and change, enhanced quality control and stakeholder satisfaction, and greater profitability. With the widespread acceptance and implementation of project management the question now is: Who is setting the pace applying the principles and tools of project management in the most effective and innovative ways possible? This book explores what it means to be project-driven by incorporating responses from 26 of those companies - the firms Kerzner recognizes as achieving or nearing excellence in six crucial categories: training and education, behavior, process integration, culture, informal management, and management support.

cover Project Management : A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling
by Harold Kerzner
A business world classic, Project Management has for years served as the definitive text on the process of overseeing a project from conception to reality. Now this widely acclaimed reference has been updated and reorganized to provide readers at every level on authoritative, current source that's easier than ever to use. Reflecting the latest additions to the Project Management Institute's Body of Knowledge, this Sixth Edition contains new material on project risk management, quality management, cost control, and project management software tools.

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Lean Project Management: Eight Principles For Success

by Lawrence P. Leach
Lean Project Management takes you through all of the steps to plan and execute projects using the exciting new Lean and Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) methods. Larry Leach is uniquely qualified to integrate CCPM and Lean practices in a practical way that works for all kinds of projects, large and small. This book is a second edition of Eight Secrets to Supercharge Your Projects with CCPM, which has received outstanding reader reviews.

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Critical Chain Project Management, Second Edition

by Lawrence P. Leach
The Artech House bestseller, Critical Chain Project Management, now builds on its success in a second edition packed with fresh, field-tested insights on how to plan, lead, and complete projects in "half the time, all the time." It provides you with expanded coverage on critical chain planning, multiple project selection and management, critical change project networks, OPM3, new Agile and Lean techniques related to critical chain project management (CCPM), and effective strategies for bringing about the organizational change required to succeed with this breakthrough method.
This cutting-edge work gives you full understanding of the CCPM techniques, tools, and theory you need to develop critical chain solutions and apply them to all types of projects. You get clear instructions on how to build single-project critical chain plans and how to stagger projects in a multiple-project environment. You also learn buffer management techniques for avoiding the pitfalls of committing too much or too little to any specific project, and for meeting project time and cost commitments every time. Moreover, the book integrates key features of PMBOK (Project Management Body of Knowledge) with critical chain to help you master key project management skills not covered in other critical chain books, such as scope control and risk management.

This easy-to-follow guide offers you the power to shorten project delivery time, eliminate cost and scheduling over-runs, manage project resources more efficiently, reduce stress on your project team, and finish projects that meet or exceed expectations. Over 100 illustrations help clarify this innovative method that has produced well-documented results in a growing variety of project environments.

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The Simply Lean Pocket Guide for Construction - Tools for the Elimination of Waste in the Design-Bid-Build Construction Project Cycle

by Shawn Hayes, Mark Tapping and Brian Sedwick
The Simply Lean Pocket Guide for Construction was created to provide the necessary forms and worksheets for a team to learn, implement, and document Lean problem solving activities using the PLAN-DO-CHECK-ACT (PDCA) methodology while following an actual case of Lean construction. PDCA is a cycle of activities designed to drive continuous improvement. Initially implemented in manufacturing, it has broad applicability in business. This book will assist teams and individuals to: collect the right data, in the right way, to support improvement projects; meet effectively to maximize organizational resources; brainstorm to solicit best ideas; obtain a consensus to solve problems; determine root cause(s); standardize improvements; think outside the box; accept change; work to attain process perfection. Construction workers are natural problem solvers, in that, they continually adapt their skills to the uniqueness of each project. However, they are also known to not document solutions to problems ensuring it will not reappear. The purpose of this handy little pocket guide is to standardize and improve problem solving skills and serve as a basis for long term quality improvement in Lean organization (i.e., making it better). The tools and concepts contained in this book are not theory, but practical advice on what to do when there is a problem and a need to improve. This book will not provide detailed explanations of Lean tools such as 5S, Mistake Proofing, Visual Controls, JIT, etc. - there is material already on those topics - but it is a book to more fully engage the construction industry worker (customer service representative working with a mortgage company for a client s application to the electrician with his or her punch list) with a step-by-step, how-to guide on implementing quality improvement tools with a Lean twist. This pocket guide was designed to be: 1. A standard problem solving guide. To ensure the best use of everyone s time, this guide will provide the basic structure (i.e., standard) for which all continuous improvement teams should follow (or supplement your existing Lean or problem solving training). By using time wisely, it will reduce the variation in the overall improvement process and provide a solid foundation upon which to introduce additional Lean tools. 2. A reference guide for the problem solving tools. Short, concise definitions of a tool, along with an example, will allow a team member to reference the tool when needed - especially when that team member is away from the team collecting data or working on a pilot project as part of the event. 3. A learning tool. A case study called Midway Construction is presented throughout this book to provide examples of how the various tools are used, as well as their relativity to Lean. This case study will assist you to better understand how to use a particular tool in your project. 4. A team and personal log. Notes and ideas about the area or process that is being analyzed can be easily written down in this book so as not to lose or misplace valuable process information. Your Idea Kaizens can also be recorded in the appropriate section of this book. Pages for your note taking are designated by the pen icon. Simply Lean is about conveying the PLAN-DO-CHECK-ACT (PDCA) cycle of problem solving with a long term Lean focus and direction. It will allow all trades to take responsibility and improve quality for the entire delivery system as a whole, rather than just one activity (or trade). Toyota s (the model for Lean) success is not found so much in their full blown, week-long, detailed kaizen events, but in the power of their employees to simply problem solve.

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Building a Project-Driven Enterprise: How to Slash Waste and Boost Profits Through Lean Project Management

by Ronald Mascitelli
Why pay for waste? Building a Project-Driven Enterprise describes breakthrough methods for eliminating non-value-added waste from any project. Whether your team's objective is to implement a new software application, build a skyscraper, or develop a new product line, the powerful techniques of Lean Project Management and Lean Product Development will pay enormous dividends. These practical, common sense work methods are presented in a style that is light and to-the-point. The goal is to enable you to apply these methods the very next day to begin saving time and boosting profits. Loaded with tips, real-world examples, templates, and illustrations, this book will be your most valuable asset in achieving project efficiency and excellence.

cover Project Management for Small and Medium Sized Businesses
by Harold and Thamhain, Hans Kerzner
A must for Project-driven SMEs

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Profitable Partnering for Lean Construction

by Clive Thomas Cain
The lean procurement techniques given in this practical guide could save clients up to 40% of total design and construction costs; case history evidence is included to prove that the techniques really work. The guide goes on to explain in equal depth the lean construction techniques that supply-side design and construction firms (including trades contractors) need to adopt to deliver the savings while boosting their profit margins.
Written in an accessible style, it explains why lean construction techniques will only deliver this high level of savings if they are underpinned by long-term, strategic, supply-side partnering relationships between consultants, construction contractors, trades contractors and manufacturers.
This is a 'how to' book written in terms everyone can understand, without the need for an expert interpreter or costly training.

cover Lean Construction
by Alarcon
This book looks at the application of a new production philosophy, leading to "lean production" (using less space, less human effort, less product development time etc), is expected to change almost every industry and bring about radical changes.

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Modern Construction Management

by Frank Harris, Ronald McCaffer, Francis Edum-Fotwe
This well established undergraduate textbook has been thoroughly revised and updated to cover the latest practices in PFI/PPP, risk management, supply networks, sustainability, lean construction, KPIs, and value management.
Modern Construction Management now addresses in particular the contractor's role - often neglected in other textbooks - and throughout it emphasises essential skills and core topics for career development and progression in construction.
Two substantial chapters are devoted to self-learning with problems, worked examples and tutorial exercises and the book's comprehensive, clear and pragmatic approach ensures it retains its position as the core textbook for students of construction management, civil engineering and quantity surveying.
The material in the book is supported with a comprehensive list of questions and solutions that can be employed as a learning aid. These can be found at https://www.blackwellpublishing.com/harris/

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Construction Management: New Directions

by Denny McGeorge, Angela Palmer
The construction industry continues to face substantial demands for improvement in quality and cost control, and a reduction in contract disputes. A number of management concepts have been promoted to help achieve this, but many in the industry find the concepts confusing and are sceptical about their usefulness.
This book brings together, in a single volume, the main management concepts relevant to the construction industry, providing an objective account of the concepts and showing how they interrelate:
* value management
* buildability
* benchmarking
* total quality management
* partnering and alliancing
* supply chain management (new for this edition)
* re-engineering

In addition to a new chapter, a new section on strategic alliancing has been added. Text and references have been updated throughout.

cover Construction Planning, Equipment, and Methods
by Robert L. Peurifoy
.......continues to reflect the very latest engineering practices, and proceeds to effectively tie in theory with current trends in this dynamic industry. Completely updated throughout, the book provides readers with comprehensive coverage involving: equipment cost; engineering fundamentals of moving earth; tractors and related equipment; trucks and wagons; compressed air; drilling rock and earth; blasting rock; concrete; and so much more.

cover Construction Project Scheduling
by Michael T. Callahan
This text is for the senior undergraduate/graduate level course in planning and scheduling, a required course for all construction students. The primary focus of the book is on CPM scheduling with reference to other types of schedules used in the construction industry.

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Practical Construction Management

by Ray Ranns, E.J.M Ranns
What they said about the book's predecessor The Site Agent's Handbook:
"...an abundance of practical solutions...a very useful reference book that provides all the essential details of this post" - Chartered Builder
The Site Agent is the key player on any construction site - primarily a businessman and only secondarily an Engineer. The main role is to plan and control the resources allocated to the project, according to the terms of the contract, and to satisfy the contractor and the client. Some operate in civil engineering and others in building, but most of the issues apply to both sectors.

Very few contractors provide specific training for engineers stepping into this role. One of the aims of this book is to help to fill this gap in training and to help the young engineer in choosing between contracting and other branches of civil engineering. It sets out the essentials of the agent's work and can be used both as preliminary guide and as a frequent reference.

cover Construction Methods and Management
by Stephens W. Nunnally
....presents a comprehensive introduction to the methods and management of today's construction industry. This text covers the material so thoroughly that it can serve as the basic text for a variety of construction courses. S. W. Nunnally covers critical path methods, contracts, construction economics, productivity, safety, and health in addition to building construction, heavy construction, and earthmoving.

cover Productivity Improvement in Construction
by Clarkson Hill Oglesby
This text covers the important topics of productivity improvement (a hot topic in today's construction industry). Topics discussed include project management, site management, human resources management, productivity (improved studies, human factors, economics, safety and environmental health).

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Project Risk Management: Processes, Techniques and Insights

by Chris Chapman, Stephen Ward
"When first published in 1997, Chris Chapman and Stephen Ward's Project Risk Management instantly became a classic in the field, bringing risk management in a systematic manner into the mainstream for the management of projects. Their second edition of this seminal work is a tour de force - a comprehensive, lucid, and highly readable guide to one of the thorniest aspects of managing projects. Their book is a combination of leading edge scholarship coupled with strong, practical advice for project managers. I found useful insights on nearly every page."
—Jeffrey K. Pinto, Ph.D. Breene Professor of Management, Penn State University

"Chris Chapman and Stephen Ward are our two leading scholars in project based uncertainty management. This second edition confirms their importance to the field."
—Peter W G Morris, Professor of Project Management, University College London; Executive Director, INDECO

This book argues that risk management is a key task for project managers in any project. It describes a methodology for a systematic approach to risk management and discusses project risk management in the context of the project management task as a whole. Examples illustrate issues, concepts, and methodologies.

cover Construction Contract Administration
by Ralph W. Liebing
Using a simplified approach to a complex, evolving area, it provides an up-to-date overview of the entire process - including the general philosophy and rationale, and the roles, obligations, and responsibilities of all major participants in a construction project. Appropriate for all construction disciplines - e.g., architecture, engineering, construction management, construction - it focuses on those topics that cross several occupational lines and that are directly usable by any of the major project participants.

cover Construction Accounting and Financial Management
by William J. Palmer
An essential tool for contractors, construction managers, and accountants, this edition of this popular reference details the special accounting and financial problems faced by the construction industry, and provides clear solutions to them. Included is expert advice on everything from handling subcontracting, labor, materials, equipment, and overhead costs, to financial reporting, internal auditing, and tax considerations.

cover Successful Proposal Strategies for Small Businesses : Winning Government, Private Sector, and International Contracts
by Robert S. Frey
....it guides the reader through every stage of the proposal response lifecycle, highlighting the major components of proposal documents, examining standards and regulations, analyzing the proposal manager's pivotal role, and illustrating the close relationship between the federal acquisition and contractor response process.
The book is packed with up-to-date, valuable information that can be put to use immediately, including: proposal writing techniques; proposal production and information management scenarios; marketing and proposal cost control and recovery strategies; client and competitor information sources; and winning approaches to long-term marketing.

coverThe 5 Pillars of Tqm : How to Make Total Quality Management Work for You
by Bill Creech
.....Creech does not claim that TQM will produce either quick or miraculous fixes. In fact, he stresses that effectively attending and applying the five essential elements of his canon (commitment, leadership, organization, process, product) can be an exacting, even wrenching, experience.

cover Quality Function Deployment : Integrating Customer Requirements Into Product Design
by Yoji Akao
Edited and partially authored by Yoji Akao, the originator of QFD and a leader in the Japanese Total Quality Control movement, this volume reveals how this new systems engineering technique has been successfully customized and integrated with other aspects of management in the construction, process, service, and software industries.

cover Customer Integration : The Quality Function Deployment (Qfd) Leader's Guide for Decision Making
by William Barnard
Customer integrated decision making (CIDM) is a technique which will ensure higher levels of customer satisfaction, increase the speed and efficiency in the product development process and boost profits. This superior guide offers step-by-step explanations of the CIDM process, details the reasons for using CIDM market identification methods and depicts basic and advanced customer choice prediction approaches.

cover Customer-Driven Project Management : A New Paradigm in Total Quality Implementation
by Bruce T. Barkley and James H. Saylor
This book introduces project managers and engineers to the concept of total quality management and demonstrates how to put quality improvements "on line." A unique eight-phase system shows readers how they can become key team players-working with management to meet customer needs without sacrificing schedules and running over budget. The author explains the importance of the front end concept in project management and how to reorganize project phases for greater efficiency and quality.

cover Quality Assurance : Methods and Technologies
by Kenneth L. Arnold

coverBeyond Tqm : Tools & Techniques for High Performance Improvement
by Jack L. Huffman
The book is divided into seven sections that represent the seven critical initiatives that organizations face as unrelenting improvement becomes the norm. Section 1, Gathering and interpreting data. Section 2, Directing the improvement effort. Section 3, on teams. Section 4, Creativity tools for teams and individuals. Section 5, Solving problems. section 6, Optimizing decisions. Section 7, Improvement strategies and tactics.

cover101 Creative Problem Solving Techniques : The Handbook of New Ideas for Business
by James M. Higgins
How many times have you wished that you had a creative problem solving book properly indexed so you can begin using the techniques right away? "101 Creative Problem Solving Techniques" helps you achieve these pronto. Divided into Personal and Group techniques, you can handily zoom in to possible solutions quickly.

coverLateral Thinking : Creativity Step-By-Step
by Edward De Bono
Thinking is a skill that can be developed and improved if one knows how. An internationally known bestseller, this audio encourages the habit of lateral thinking to generate new ideas. Learn special techniques to accomplish this. Whether in a group or alone, the result is a triumph of entertaining education.

cover Serious Creativity : Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas
by Edward De Bono

coverThe Art of Thinking : A Guide to Critical and Creative Thought
by Vincent Ryan Ruggiero
If you can only master what this book teaches you will truely be an educated and clear thinking person. Very practical, easy to read and understand. This book teaches what most people never learn and desperately need to learn; how to be a quality analytical and creative thinker. Get it, read it over and over and apply it.

coverSix Thinking Hats
by Edward De Bono
This is a tremendous tool for anyone working in a corporate setting and looking for new ways to generate ideas and choose the right one.

cover Brainstorming : How to Create Successful Ideas
by Charles Clark

cover 40 Tools for Cross-Functional Teams : Building Synergy for Break Through Creativity
by Walter J. Mihalski and Dana G. King
Cross-functional teams, that is, teams comprised of members from different departments, are an essential element in developing a world class organization. Yet anyone who has tried to build effective cross-functional teams knows that they often fade away; they lack the tools, training, and motivation that would enable them to tackle more challenging tasks.
In 40 Tools for Cross-Functional Teams: Building Synergy for Breakthrough Creativity, Walter Michalski cuts through the tangled thicket of team literature to give us a focused and comprehensive guide to building and sustaining cross-functional teams. This book will teach you everything you need to know about cross-functional teams. The author provides 40 carefully selected tools arranged in eight process stages, including getting cross-functional teams up and running, developing synergy/consensus, creatively solving problems, and recognizing and rewarding teams.
An engaging book with clear illustrations, 40 Tools for Cross-Functional Teams is based on the same user friendly design of the Tool Navigator's Master Guide for Teams. Each tool is presented in a two or three page spread describing the tool, its function, method for implementation, and example of the tool in use. These 40 tools will assist any company in the creation of cross-functional teams to compete in today's team based corporate environment.
Included are discussions of:
    Why teams fail and tips for assuring team success.
    Cross-functional teams and how to form them.
    Forming a cross-functional Six Sigma Team.
    Team communications and cross-functional synergy.
    Recognizing and rewarding your teams.

cover Building Team Power : How to Unleash the Collaborative Genius of Work Teams
by Thomas A. Kayser
By the author of the best-selling Mining Group Gold, Team Power offers ideas, tools and techniques for increasing team productivity in any environment: public or private sector; profit or nonprofit; service or manufacturing-based. Teamwork is fast becoming one of the most integral skills an employee can master. Written to guide team leaders and participants toward improved collaboration and cooperation, this helpful book offers easy-to-implement ideas, tools, and techniques for increasing team productivity in any environment.

cover Improving Work Groups : A Practical Manual for Team Building
by Dave Francis
Guidelines and 25 activites designed to build and maintain effective teams!

Aimed at any manager, consultant, or employee responsible for developing effective teams, Improving Work Groups offers a step-by-step system for initiating and evaluating team performance.
You'll discover:
* What a team really is
* Why teams should be built
* How teams are developed
* Who develops them, and
* How to measure and improve team effectiveness

You'll also get 25 activities that cover a wide range of issues concerning team building, such as: setting objectives, analyzing the leadership function, leadership style, team development stages, charting team success, and many more!
Based on the premise that few teams develop to their full effectivess without a good deal of nuturing, Improving Work Groups brings an element of open, systematic planning and review to the task of team development. Novice or seasoned veteran, you'll find it a valuable tool for developing teams that work together long into the future!

coverTeam Decision-Making Techniques : A Practical Guide to Successful Team Outcomes
by Keith P. Kelly
Making a decision on your own can be trying, but making a decision as a group can be even more difficult. By using the clear and concise techniques provided, the team decision-making process can be easier and more effective.

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Innovation and Entrepreneurship

by Peter F. Drucker
Peter Drucker's classic book on innovation and entrepreneurship.
This is the first book to present innovation and entrepreneurship as a purposeful and systematic discipline that explains and analyzes the challenges and opportunities of America's new entrepreneurial economy. Superbly practical, Innovation and Entrepreneurship explains what established businesses, public service institutions, and new ventures need to know and do to succeed in today's economy.

About the Author
Peter F. Drucker is considered the most influential management thinker ever. The author of more than twenty-five books, his ideas have had an enormous impact on shaping the modern corporation. Drucker passed away in 2005.

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How to Win Friends & Influence People

by Dale Carnegie
This grandfather of all people-skills books was first published in 1937. It was an overnight hit, eventually selling 15 million copies. How to Win Friends and Influence People is just as useful today as it was when it was first published, because Dale Carnegie had an understanding of human nature that will never be outdated. Financial success, Carnegie believed, is due 15 percent to professional knowledge and 85 percent to "the ability to express ideas, to assume leadership, and to arouse enthusiasm among people." He teaches these skills through underlying principles of dealing with people so that they feel important and appreciated. He also emphasizes fundamental techniques for handling people without making them feel manipulated. Carnegie says you can make someone want to do what you want them to by seeing the situation from the other person's point of view and "arousing in the other person an eager want." You learn how to make people like you, win people over to your way of thinking, and change people without causing offense or arousing resentment. For instance, "let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers," and "talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person." Carnegie illustrates his points with anecdotes of historical figures, leaders of the business world, and everyday folks.

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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

by Stephen R. Covey
Review
Ken M. Radziwanowski AT&T School of Business Picture someone going through the best experience they've ever had in terms of training -- that's what they say. People credit The 7 Habits with changing their lives, with getting back on track personally and professionally.

cover Beyond Reengineering : How the Process-Centered Organization Is Changing Our Work and Our Lives
by Michael Hammer
Hammer has done it again! First, he defined reengineering. Now, he defines the staggering, even radical, implications of the customer-driven process-centered organization on work and management, structure and strategy. Everyone's future will be impacted by such a paradigm shift.

cover Construction Equipment Management
by John Schaufelberger
.....this practical and informative guide provides critical knowledge of construction equipment, its use, and management considerations. It provides clear, concise explanations of concepts, supported by detailed example problems and realistic exercises, and requires only limited knowledge of construction equipment. KEY TOPICS:Covers all major types of equipment typically used on commercial construction projects, and illustrates the operational capabilities of each type with numerous figures. Shows how to select the proper equipment for specific construction tasks, and discusses techniques for estimating equipment productivity and costs. Discusses major equipment management issues, including the time value of money, fleet management, and maintenance management.

cover Introduction to TPM; Total Productive Maintenance
by Seiichi Nakajima
Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) combines preventive maintenance with Japanese concepts of total quality control (TQC) and total employee involvement (TEI). The result is a new system for equipment maintenance that optimizes effectiveness, eliminates breakdowns, and promotes autonomous operator maintenance through day-to-day activities. Since it was first introduced in Japan, TPM has caused a worldwide revolution in plant maintenance. Here are the steps involved in TPM and case examples from top Japanese plants.

cover Tpm Development Program : Implementing Total Productive Maintenance
by Seiichi Nakajima
The TPM Bible.

cover Kaizen for Quick Changeover : Going Beyond Smed
by Kenichi Sekine
Especially useful for manufacturing managers and engineers, this book describes exactly how to achieve faster changeover. Picking up where Shingo's SMED book left off, you'll learn how to streamline the process even further to reduce changeover time and optimize staffing at the same time.

cover Construction Safety
by Jimmie W. Hinze
.....this text summarizes the latest research in a way that managers can use immediately. There is an emphasis on the principles of accident prevention. A text for courses in construction safety, incorporating research conducted over the past 25 years and covering topics not commonly dealt with, such as accident causation theories, contract provisions addressing safety, and the roles of project coordination and of designers. Chapters discuss OSHA operation and investigation, overview the basic components of a safety program, and address specific aspects including safety incentives, substance abuse, and the responsibilities of first-line supervisors and safety personnel.

cover Tpm for Workshop Leaders
by Kunio Shirose
.....Kunio Shirose describes the problems that TPM group leaders are likely to experience and the improvements in quality and vast cost savings you should expect to achieve. In this non-technical overview of TPM, he incorporates cartoons and graphics to convey the hands-on leadership issues of TPM implementation. Case studies and realistic examples reinforce Shirose's ideas on training and managing equipment operators in the care of their equipment.

cover Tpm for Every Operator (Shopfloor Series)
by Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance
Total employee involvement is the foundation of a successful TPM program. TPM for Every Operator introduces frontline workers to the basic methodology of TPM in a succinct, easy-to-read format that covers all aspects of this important manufacturing improvement strategy, including autonomous maintenance, focused improvement, and safety activities. Almost every page is illustrated to provide visual reinforcement for the clear, simple explanations of each TPM element. Every shopfloor worker in your company should read this book; it's the best way to ensure a companywide understanding of TPM.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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