Process consultation, invented by Edgar Schein, is both a skill and an organization development change effort. As a skill, process consultation means the ability to observe and provide feedback about small group dynamics to a work group about how well group members interact and how to improve that interaction. Just as facilitators devote their time to (in one word) asking, process consultants devote their time to (in one word) watching-at an expert level. As a change effort, process consultation is a concerted effort to help members of a group work together more effectively. For that reason, the word "process" in this context should be interpreted to mean "interpersonal interaction in small groups." Historically, process consultation has focused attention on face-to-face groups and their group dynamics. But times are changing. More work is done online or in blended (online and onsite) groups than face-to-face alone. A 2017 survey of over 25,000 workers in 12 countries revealed that 62% of global workers are now working flexibly-with some residential work and some virtual work. The same survey found that workers believe that flexible work arrangements make them more productive and that 48% of survey respondents reported that their virtual interactions include representatives of other cultures. It is true that, for workers who can discipline themselves and manage distractions at home, virtual work can be more productive when commuting time is eliminated and workplace distractions are minimized. Virtual work has the advantage of reducing the need for childcare, slashing work wardrobe costs, and cutting unproductive, stressful commuting time. Despite how modes of working together have changed over the years-ranging from face-to-face to some degree of virtual (video conference, audio conference, print-only collaboration, and many blended combinations)-and the growing need for finding ways to help people work together more effectively, there has been no practical guideline of process consultation in a virtual or mixed work setting since Schein's process consultation initially focused on group dynamics in face-to-face settings. Therefore, this book aims to provide practical approaches to process consultation, helping group members discover more effective ways of working together in blended virtual/residential and cross-cultural settings. Essentially, this book provides a practical, how-to guide for virtual coaching, using step-by-step procedural approaches, cases, and helpful platforms/technologies and tools. It also provides information about how to use technology to support the process of improving virtual or mixed group relationship.

Our world has changed, probably for good. Until now, the shift from brick-and-mortar to the smartphone has been about service, cost, and convenience. Now, it's also a matter of public health. How do we win this uncertain new game? How do we prosper in a digital world? In a cool, readable style Harnessing Digital Disruption: How Companies Win with Design Thinking, Agile, and Lean Startup tells the story of a major multi-national organization facing digital disruption and looming irrelevance. In a compelling novel format, the book demonstrates how to harness the power of digital technology, methods and thinking on the path to revival and prosperity. It illustrates the situations, characters, and blockers you’ll likely face as you progress through your journey. The setting is Singapore and the heady world of international banking, but the prescription, methods and lessons apply equally to manufacturers, utilities, hospitals, insurers, and government agencies. You will learn how to: · Develop your Digital Transformation strategy and Innovation Portfolio · Reform customer journeys, launch new digital offerings, and validate new beta businesses · Develop senior leader digital literacy, and understanding of growth leadership · De-risk your journey using a proven overall approach based on proven principles · Cultivate a network of pragmatic entrepreneurs practicing a structured scalable innovation process

Aunt Jemima's familiar beaming, warm smile and laughing eyes have been associated with breakfast pancakes for generations of Americans. "Invented" in 1888 to help market a new type of pancake flour, Aunt Jemima has been represented by a good number of real women and a tremendous number of collectible products. This book displays hundred of the item available from Aunt Jemima's long history, and provides fascinating or funny glimpses into over a century of our nation's cultural history. Collectors interested in kitchen memorabilia and/or African-American history will find this book wonderfully eye-opening! Promotional items and advertisements are presented, including doll families, recipe books, kitchen utensils, menus, coloring books, and cooking set for children. The complete story of Aunt Jemima's Pancake Mix, the myth of Aunt Jemima herself, and the stories of the real women who portrayed her are all told in this delightful book. A price guide is included.

More than 700 striking photographs and a detailed text about Zippo cigarette lighters, their history and current values, as well as the Viet Nam War comprise this important new book. It provides not only photographs of authentic and counterfeit Zippos and the factory's own art work, but also a concise outline of the War, lists of U.S. and Vietnamese ship and boat names that did duty in Viet Nam, definitions of naval abbreviations, South Vietnamese waterways and geographic names, Allied in-country units, and a comprehensive dictionary translating important Vietnamese military terms so that old Zippo lighters can be interpreted today. Singularly, this book holds tremendous appeal to an extremely broad audience. Lighter collectors will see a wide variety of rare and common Zippos. Photographers and artists interested in the Viet Nam War and its images will see powerful action photos. Viet Nam War and general military collectors and historians will find factual information organized in a quickly accessible form. Political historians and Sixties and Seventies collectors will find ideas and objects to delight their interests. All will want this unique and striking book for their libraries.

Transforming Management Using Artificial Intelligence Techniques redefines management practices using artificial intelligence (AI) by providing a new approach. It offers a detailed, well-illustrated treatment of each topic with examples and case studies, and brings the exciting field to life by presenting a substantial and robust introduction to AI in a clear and concise manner. It provides a deeper understanding of how the relevant aspects of AI impact each other's efficacy for better output. It's a reliable and accessible one-step resource that introduces AI; presents a full examination of applications; provides an understanding of the foundations; examines education powered by AI, entertainment, home and service robots, healthcare re-imagined, predictive policing, space exploration; and so much more, all within the realm of AI. This book will feature: Uncovering new and innovative features of AI and how it can help in raising economic efficiency at both micro- and macro levels Both the literature and practical aspects of AI and its uses This book summarizing key concepts at the end of each chapter to assist reader comprehension Case studies of tried and tested approaches to resolutions of typical problems Ideal for both teaching and general-knowledge purposes. This book will also simply provide the topic of AI for the readers, aspiring researchers and practitioners involved in management and computer science, so they can obtain a high-level of understanding of AI and managerial applications.

This book is for the people who lead our companies. Our world suffered a staggering blow. We will recover. Many of our companies are still suffering. Some of them will not recover. We're in a time of disruption. A company's culture will play a big part in managing through this disruption. Senior leaders must establish a clear purpose, a strong set of core values, and a plan to translate strategy into action. Companies will be seeking to transform, to become more efficient and resilient. Most attempts to do so fail. They fail because we try to solve the wrong problem with the wrong system. We attempt to change the way people act. But to achieve sustained improvement, we must focus on changing the way they think. Over the last thirty years, we've experimented with Lean, Six Sigma, and other improvement initiatives. Each failed to move beyond average performance and sustain transformational improvement. Average then became a learned behavior. To move forward, we must unlearn some things. We must change our problem definition and our defined systems. And we can do this by framing the problem through the lens of Operational Excellence.

This comprehensive reference work gives an overview of the industrial development and current state of industrialization and deindustrialization in Asia, specifically Southeast Asia and China. It introduces typologies of industrial policies and discusses the manufacturing sector and its evolving role in the region. Designing Integrated Industrial Policies examines the integration of SMEs in global value chains and provides macro-econometric and firm-based micro-econometric analyses of (de)industrialization. This book will be a very useful reference particularly as a how-to guide on industrial promotion and designing integrated industrial policies not only for economic growth and job creation but also for "inclusive" development. It presents country cases and illustrates useful tools for industrial policy simulation and for evidence-based policy making through these concrete examples.

The City of Manchester, once the birthplace of the 1st Industrial Revolution, is today a pioneering hub of the 4th Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0), offering Industry 4.0 solutions in advanced materials, engineering, healthcare and social sciences. Indeed, the creation of some of the city's greatest academic institutions was a direct outcome of the industrial revolution, so it was something of a homecoming that the Sustainable Smart Manufacturing (S2M) Conference was hosted by The University of Manchester in 2019. The conference was jointly organised by The University of Manchester, The University of Lisbon and The Polytechnic of Leiria - the latter two bringing in a wealth of expertise in how Industry 4.0 manifests itself in the context of sustainably evolving, deeply-rooted cities. S2M-2019 instigated the development of 61 papers selected for publication in this book on areas of Smart Manufacturing, Additive Manufacturing and Virtual Prototyping, Materials for Healthcare Applications and Circular Economy, Design Education, and Urban Spaces.

Profitable production planning is and will remain an eternal challenge to ensuring the prosperity and dignity of companies in a global market. Even though there are different approaches to achieving the target profitability through productivity in the production planning stage, these approaches do not guarantee consistent planning, creation, and sustenance of synchronous profitable operations for multiannual and annual target profit. In feedback to this predicament, Alin Posteuca develops a new system called speed-based target profit (SBTP). SBTP is the profitable production management and manufacturing improvement system that approaches production planning to achieve unit speed of target profit for target products through manufacturing cost improvement and bottleneck profitability control for maximum takt time. Managers and practitioners within manufacturing companies will discover a practical approach for cost down and cash up by applying a powerful operational profitable production planning formula to meet profitability expectations through productivity based on strong leadership with the help of a specific system for feedforward, concurrent, and feedback control. Therefore, the SBTP system in this book presents a holistic approach to profitability for target products and the development of its own mechanism since the acceptance of each order from customers to achieve continuous synchronization of all manufacturing processes to market requirements, profitability management, and profitable production planning. The uniqueness of the book is reinforced by a detailed presentation of the successful application of the SBTP system in two case studies, as a way of life and a unit speed of target profit improvement ethos at all hierarchical levels, in two multinational manufacturing companies operating in highly competitive markets in order to address the synchronous profitable operations for both the sales increase scenario and the sales decrease scenario. By adopting the SBTP system, your company will be able to consistently achieve unit speed of target profit in the bottleneck process for fulfilling annual and multiannual target profit as a unique and effective way through a new profitable production planning paradigm that operates according to its own production system.

People do their best work when they are motivated. This may sound obvious, but while people managers instinctively agree with the centrality of motivation at work and its impact on employee engagement, their practices do not follow. With so much "real work" to do every day, how can managers also carve out time to learn, engage, build relationships, tap motivation, encourage development, and inspire? The problem is a false dichotomy between the world of business and that of people development. What if managers were able to systematically transform everyday business issues into meaningful, developmental coaching opportunities with employees at the same time? This proven coaching approach radically shifts conversations away from either-or propositions and uses an entirely different lens: transforming business challenges by connecting them directly to employee motivation to achieve the desired business result while dramatically increasing employee engagement. And all this comes none too soon as leaders must rethink the way they lead given the modern realities of organizational life. Among them: A rapidly changing workplace and increasing uncertainty that requires a fundamental shift in the leader's approach, including the distribution of authority and the expectation that employees take responsibility for their own learning Pervasive and persistent employee disengagement, characterized by employees who no longer accept the organization's priorities at the expense of their own, where organizations that continue to dictate terms will find ongoing challenges with costly employee turnover and lack of engagement During the past decade, the Developmental Coaching Model has been taught across the globe in nine languages and has been enthusiastically embraced by thousands of managers while dissolving the invisible barriers that block individual and organizational development and business success.

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a fast-growing sector with the ability to evoke a revolution in manufacturing due to its almost unlimited design freedom and its capability to produce personalised parts locally and with efficient material use. AM companies, however, still face technological challenges such as limited precision due to shrinkage, built-in stresses and limited process stability and robustness. Moreover, often post-processing is needed due to high roughness and remaining porosity. Qualified, trained personnel are also in short supply. In recent years, there have been dramatic improvements in AM design methods, process control, post-processing, material properties and material range. However, if AM is going to gain a significant market share, it must be developed into a true precision manufacturing method. The production of precision parts relies on three principles: Production is robust (i.e. all sensitive parameters can be controlled). Production is predictable (for example, the shrinkage that occurs is acceptable because it can be predicted and compensated in the design). Parts are measurable (as without metrology, accuracy, repeatability and quality assurance cannot be known). AM of metals is inherently a high-energy process with many sensitive and inter-related process parameters, making it susceptible to thermal distortions, defects and process drift. The complete modelling of these processes is beyond current computational power, and novel methods are needed to practicably predict performance and inform design. In addition, metal AM produces highly textured surfaces and complex surface features that stretch the limits of contemporary metrology. With so many factors to consider, there is a significant shortage of background material on how to inject precision into AM processes. Shortage in such material is an important barrier for a wider uptake of advanced manufacturing technologies, and a comprehensive book is thus needed. This book aims to inform the reader how to improve the precision of metal AM processes by tackling the three principles of robustness, predictability and metrology, and by developing computer-aided engineering methods that empower rather than limit AM design. Richard Leach is a professor in metrology at the University of Nottingham and heads up the Manufacturing Metrology Team. Prior to this position, he was at the National Physical Laboratory from 1990 to 2014. His primary love is instrument building, from concept to final installation, and his current interests are the dimensional measurement of precision and additive manufactured structures. His research themes include the measurement of surface topography, the development of methods for measuring 3D structures, the development of methods for controlling large surfaces to high resolution in industrial applications and the traceability of X-ray computed tomography. He is a leader of several professional societies and a visiting professor at Loughborough University and the Harbin Institute of Technology. Simone Carmignato is a professor in manufacturing engineering at the University of Padua. His main research activities are in the areas of precision manufacturing, dimensional metrology and industrial computed tomography. He is the author of books and hundreds of scientific papers, and he is an active member of leading technical and scientific societies. He has been chairman, organiser and keynote speaker for several international conferences, and received national and international awards, including the Taylor Medal from CIRP, the International Academy for Production Engineering.

Based on the author's years of experience working with Toyota's master teachers and with companies in the midst of great change, this book follows the story established in the Shingo Prize-winning book, Andy & Me: Crisis & Transformation on the Lean Journey. In a cool and readable style, Andy & Me and the Hospital: Further Adventures on the Lean Journey follows Tom Pappas's relationship with Andy Saito, a reclusive retired Toyota guru. Tom and Andy are pulled into a major New York City hospital in crisis. Can they translate and apply Toyota's powerful methods and thinking to save the hospital from disaster? Using a compelling novel format, the book demonstrates how to apply Lean thinking in a healthcare setting. It illustrates the situations, characters, and plant politics you will most likely face as you progress through your Lean healthcare journey. As the story unfolds, you will discover the way of thinking and behavioral changes required to implement proven Toyota Production System (TPS) methods, tools, and thinking in healthcare. You will learn: What a Lean transformation in a hospital should look like The overall approach you need to take The leadership and behavioral changes required How to improve processes and better develop and engage people How to build and sustain a Lean management system How to translate and apply Deming's "profound system of knowledge" This book provides clear and simple guidance on what it takes to successfully implement Toyota methods in healthcare settings. It shares helpful insights on how the different elements need to fit together to deliver measurable process improvement results. Just like its bestselling predecessors, this book includes study questions after each chapter to support learning and to facilitate discussion in workshops or classroom settings.

Green Productivity and Cleaner Production: A Guidebook for Sustainability focuses on green production processes that could help better achieve global sustainability. It aids readers in realizing the issues with current conventional productivity initiatives and examines the newest methods. Also, it presents numerous real-world applications techniques, which allows users the ability to apply the most appropriate solutions for their situations. Further, it explains measures to achieve green productivity and cleaner production to help maintain high quality, sustainable production chains while simultaneously conserving natural resources and reducing waste. Features: Examines the core theories and techniques for green productivity, waste management, end-of-pipe treatment methods, sustainable production technologies, and cleaner production Written with a simple and easily understandable presentation, applicable for both undergraduate students and practicing professionals alike Provides guidance on how to use different tools and techniques in various problem-solving scenarios Focuses on greening production processes as an initiation to achieve global environmental sustainability Includes numerous illustrations, along with practical examples and tools helpful for readers to understand and apply the approaches presented throughout The subjects covered in Green Productivity and Cleaner Production: A Guidebook for Sustainability are of interest to students, researchers, academicians, and professionals in various industries.

Nanobiotechnology for Sustainable Bioenergy and Biofuel Production provides insights into the most recent innovations, trends, concerns and challenges in the production of biofuels. This book highlights a number of key research topics and practical applications of modern nanomaterials and nanocomposite-driven enzyme biotechnology for biofuels production, including the advances in the nanoscaffolds design (nanomaterials support) for immobilizing bioenergy producing enzymes (nanobiocatalyst system), the recent trends in biomass processing (untreated/treated agriculture and food waste, grasses, algal, etc.) using advanced nanobiocatalysts for biofuels production and the scale-up study of bioenergy production using nanomaterials immobilized enzymes and biofuel harvesting using nanomaterials. At the outset of new nanobiotechnology applications in biofuel production, there is a need for a new resource in the bioenergy field. This book delivers an overview of the contributions of biofuel production and the most up-to-date advances in nanobiotechnology to a diverse audience ranging from post-graduate students to researchers in biochemical engineering, biotechnology, bioremediation and environmental studies and pharmaceutical professionals. Key Features * Outlines the most recent nanobiotechnological advances in biofuels and bioenergy for biofuels productions * Covers biodiesel, bioethanol, biomethane, biohydrogen, biorefineries and biofuel harvesting using nanomaterials * Explains the scale-up nanobiotechnological study of biofuel production at the bioreactor level

Get in Gear: The Seven Gears that Drive Strategy to Results (978-0-367-47149-1, 335422) Shelving Guide: Business and Management/Leadership/Strategy Only 10% to 25% of organizations get it right when it comes to achieving the expected results from their strategic planning. This means 75% to 90% of them are leaving results on the table and wasting their time on things that don't matter. Almost a decade ago, a major steel manufacturer approached Sean Ryan and his team to help them think through how to better convert strategy to results. This was the catalyst for the seven gears that translate strategy to results found in Strategy-Execution-Results (SXR (TM)). Why Gears? Gears transmit energy. The more aligned they are and the less friction in their chain, the better they function. Leaders can easily identify the gear creating the most friction and then take action to better align that gear with the strategy generating better results. This creates momentum to improve the alignment and performance of other gears. This approach also emphasizes the ways everyone in the organization has some influence over every gear. Based on Sean Ryan's consulting and training with organizations from start-ups to the Fortune 100, he's found that these performance gears drive better results. You'll employ them to align your goals with your strategy, create visible scorecards to know whether or not you're on track, and identify the critical behaviors and actions that will drive performance. Readers will use this book to point their efforts toward getting meaningful results from their strategy. As noted in the Harvard Business Review: "The prize for closing the strategy-performance gap is huge: increasing performance by at least 50% for most organizations." After moving beyond their initial amazement of just how misaligned they were, they'll be able to quickly apply the seven gears to sell better and more, drive down costs, improve quality and safety, and recruit talent for the future. In addition, there's nothing in this book that has not been applied in actual business settings. While companies could use the SXR (TM) Framework to overhaul their organization top to bottom, they'll also appreciate that they don't have to change everything at once to make progress. Upon understanding each of the gears and how to create Follow-up and Follow-through, they'll be able to improve any gear to start seeing strategic outcomes. You've got it in Gear, now Stay in Gear. Join the Strategy-Execution-Results Community: www.wwici.com/Gearheads.

Applied Systems Analysis: Science and Art of Solving Real-Life Problems Subject Guide: Engineering - Industrial and Manufacturing Any activity is aimed at solving certain problems, which means transferring a system from an existing unsatisfactory problematic state to a desired state. The success or failure of the system depends on how its natural properties were implemented during the planning of improvement and intervention state. This book covers the theory and experience of successfully solving problems in a practical and general way. This book includes a general survey of modern systems analysis; offers several original results; presents the latest methodological and technological results of the theory of systems; introduces achievements; and discusses the transition from the ideology of the machine age to the ideology of the systems age. This book will be of interest to both professionals and academicians.

How can we increase the number of exceptional leaders in our organizations? Why is it that, despite having the best minds and hands at work, organizations aren't seeing a significant increase in their financial numbers? How can the maximum number of people continuously generate fabulous results for themselves and for their organizations? These are some of the most pressing questions currently in organizations and form the basis for Achieving Unstoppable Success in Any Economy. This book presents the seven divine mantras for business leaders, corporate heads, entrepreneurs, and professionals to maximize leadership potential. With masterful insight and brilliant simplicity, Payal Nanjiani has distilled some of the most powerful leadership and success wisdom available for both professional and personal leadership into seven practical lessons that leaders, managers, and entrepreneurs can immediately apply to send morale and productivity soaring in these challenging and uncertain business times. Known for her coaching and consulting work with many of the world's leading CEOs and organizations, Payal helps business professionals understand the significance of the I-Power in leadership. It highlights with certainty that for anyone to achieve unstoppable success in their job and business, and for any organization to be successful, it's the leader who must be unstoppable first. This book serves as a wake-up call-it's time individuals and organizations change the way they approach the human side of business, of leadership, and of success. Our society and the world at large cannot continue to withstand the increasing shortage of exceptional leaders and the widening gap between the successful few and the unsuccessful many. The challenge must be addressed in new ways to develop exceptional leaders who can deal with the immense complexities and business challenges of today. This book serves as a guide to an organic growth of people who lead and succeed regardless of the economy. The book is designed to help you become a highly inner-self-directed individual and take your leadership and business to new levels. It offers seven divine mantras that will enable you and your colleagues to move through hardship and achieve unstoppable success regardless of the economy. You will discover how to strategically direct your inner leader to leverage your potential. Ultimately, this deeply inspiring book reveals a remarkable step-by-step system that will restore trust, commitment, and spirit within your organization while transforming the way you think, act, and behave in the process. For more than 21 years, Payal Nanjiani has been sharing with Fortune 500 companies and many of the most successful entrepreneurs her success formulas that has made her one of the most sought-after leadership advisors in the world. Now, for the first time, through this book Payal makes her proprietary process available to you, so that you can deliver your best while helping your organization break through to a new level of success regardless of the economy. "In a world where burn out is becoming more common, it is imperative for leaders to constantly undergo self-reflection and assess their inner well-being and take stock of their emotions and encourage their team to do so as well. Emotional pain, if not tackled, could take a toll on innovation and productivity leading to a trickle-down negative effect. This book by Payal Nanjiani helps leaders undergo that much-needed self-reflection and solve the critical problem of productivity." Senthil Radhakrishnan, Administrative Chief and Clinical Neurosurgical PA at Duke "Payal gives practical tips to show that a positive attitude and small incremental changes can give you the ability to stand out and lead with or without authority. A must-read for a natural leader at any level!" Michelle Proctor, Principal Business Operations Officer "In Payal's latest book, she shares profoundly deep insights and amazing motivation for everyone to develop the mindset of leadership." Swami Mukundanda, renowned spiritual Guru "While there is no perfect formula for success as a leader, author Payal provides us with some intriguing insights on how working with our inner self can set us up on the track to be a successful leader." Shankari Rajangam, Ph.D., Neuroscientist, Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center at Duke

This book presents what the training within industry (TWI) program is and how its presence affects the understanding of work standardization, focusing on the practical aspects of the implementation of work standardization in the elimination of human errors in manufacturing and service processes.

Get in Gear: The Seven Gears that Drive Strategy to Results (978-0-367-47149-1, 335422) Shelving Guide: Business and Management/Leadership/Strategy Only 10% to 25% of organizations get it right when it comes to achieving the expected results from their strategic planning. This means 75% to 90% of them are leaving results on the table and wasting their time on things that don't matter. Almost a decade ago, a major steel manufacturer approached Sean Ryan and his team to help them think through how to better convert strategy to results. This was the catalyst for the seven gears that translate strategy to results found in Strategy-Execution-Results (SXR (TM)). Why Gears? Gears transmit energy. The more aligned they are and the less friction in their chain, the better they function. Leaders can easily identify the gear creating the most friction and then take action to better align that gear with the strategy generating better results. This creates momentum to improve the alignment and performance of other gears. This approach also emphasizes the ways everyone in the organization has some influence over every gear. Based on Sean Ryan's consulting and training with organizations from start-ups to the Fortune 100, he's found that these performance gears drive better results. You'll employ them to align your goals with your strategy, create visible scorecards to know whether or not you're on track, and identify the critical behaviors and actions that will drive performance. Readers will use this book to point their efforts toward getting meaningful results from their strategy. As noted in the Harvard Business Review: "The prize for closing the strategy-performance gap is huge: increasing performance by at least 50% for most organizations." After moving beyond their initial amazement of just how misaligned they were, they'll be able to quickly apply the seven gears to sell better and more, drive down costs, improve quality and safety, and recruit talent for the future. In addition, there's nothing in this book that has not been applied in actual business settings. While companies could use the SXR (TM) Framework to overhaul their organization top to bottom, they'll also appreciate that they don't have to change everything at once to make progress. Upon understanding each of the gears and how to create Follow-up and Follow-through, they'll be able to improve any gear to start seeing strategic outcomes. You've got it in Gear, now Stay in Gear. Join the Strategy-Execution-Results Community: www.wwici.com/Gearheads.

The author has spent approximately 50 years in the field of systems engineering. This Focus book provides a "looking back" at his 50-year run and the lessons he learned and would like to share with other engineers, so they can use these lessons in their day-to-day work in systems engineering and related fields. The book is written from a systems engineering perspective. It offers 50 lessons learned working for a variety of different companies, which can be used across many other engineering fields. The book will be of interested to students and engineers across many fields, as well as students and engineers working in business and management fields.

Sharing Best Practices across industries and functions is an accepted approach to continuous improvement. The Benchmarking trend of the 1990s has evolved with the help of competitive analysis, performance excellence awards, and other corporate recognition programs into an ongoing documentation of what works. Bob Camp introduced benchmarking against a Best Practice based on his work at Xerox in the 1980s. Case studies abound documenting Best Practice functions and processes. Some case studies use the words "Best Practice" without evidence that the process, results, or methods are, indeed, superior. What is missing is a comprehensive model for assessing and writing a Best Practice that provides sufficient information to use as an effective benchmark. This book provides that comprehensive model. Today's consumers expect products and services to be of high quality, reliable, and user-friendly. This is the result of years of continuous improvement and innovation by producers. Although many organizations strive for excellent results, there is still room for improvement. Unfortunately, leaders don't always have methods and tools to measure or assess that degree of excellence. If leaders could use a tool to discover how good their approaches and methods are, and how excellent their achieved results are, they could plan further improvements. The goal is to achieve excellent results. The tool described in this book guides leaders to achieve that excellence.

Intelligence-Based Medicine: Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Human Cognition in Clinical Medicine and Healthcare provides a multidisciplinary and comprehensive survey of artificial intelligence concepts and methodologies with real life applications in healthcare and medicine. Authored by a senior physician-data scientist, the book presents an intellectual and academic interface between the medical and the data science domains that is symmetric and balanced. The content consists of basic concepts of artificial intelligence and its real-life applications in a myriad of medical areas as well as medical and surgical subspecialties. It brings section summaries to emphasize key concepts delineated in each section; mini-topics authored by world-renowned experts in the respective key areas for their personal perspective; and a compendium of practical resources, such as glossary, references, best articles, and top companies. The goal of the book is to inspire clinicians to embrace the artificial intelligence methodologies as well as to educate data scientists about the medical ecosystem, in order to create a transformational paradigm for healthcare and medicine by using this emerging new technology.

One of the major discussions in the business world is: How do we get our human capital assets more engaged in the organization? Current Gallup Polls state that 85% of our employees are not engaged within their organizations. Employee Empowerment fully analyzes this workplace condition, which is a major concern for most CEOs. The solution proposed by this book is the introduction of the TLS (Theory of Constraints - Lean - Six Sigma) Continuum Empowerment model, which comprises three levels of empowerment - Management, Cross-Functional Team, and Individual. The first is the empowerment that comes from upper management to the organization as a whole. The second level is the empowerment that comes from the various cross-functional teams and the final level is from the individuals themselves through their ability to take ownership in the processes in which they are involved. The end solution in the book is that if we can get the human capital assets to take ownership of the processes (that is, empower the front-line employees), it will increase the level of engagement. If they become more engaged they will empower the organization at all levels to introduce sustainable change management to resolve problems within the organization. One of the tools of individual empowerment is the use of the Six Sigma toolbox. This book makes the case that when human capital assets take ownership of the processes, then we have greater engagement, and thus a more empowered organization.

In the 1950's, the design and implementation of the Toyota Production System (TPS) within Toyota had begun. In the 1960's, Group Technology (GT) and Cellular Manufacturing (CM) were used by Serck Audco Valves, a high-mix low-volume (HMLV) manufacturer in the United Kingdom, to guide enterprise-wide transformation. In 1996, the publication of the book Lean Thinking introduced the entire world to Lean. Job Shop Lean integrates Lean with GT and CM by using the five Principles of Lean to guide its implementation: (1) identify value, (2) map the value stream, (3) create flow, (4) establish pull, and (5) seek perfection. Unfortunately, the tools typically used to implement the Principles of Lean are incapable of solving the three Industrial Engineering problems that HMLV manufacturers face when implementing Lean: (1) finding the product families in a product mix with hundreds of different products, (2) designing a flexible factory layout that "fits" hundreds of different product routings, and (3) scheduling a multi-product multi-machine production system subject to finite capacity constraints. Based on the Author's 20+ years of learning, teaching, researching, and implementing Job Shop Lean since 1999, this book Describes the concepts, tools, software, implementation methodology, and barriers to successful implementation of Lean in HMLV production systems Utilizes Production Flow Analysis instead of Value Stream Mapping to eliminate waste in different levels of any HMLV manufacturing enterprise Solves the three Industrial Engineering problems that were mentioned earlier using software like PFAST (Production Flow Analysis and Simplification Toolkit), Sgetti and Schedlyzer Explains how the one-at-a-time implementation of manufacturing cells constitutes a long-term strategy for Continuous Improvement Explains how product families and manufacturing cells are the basis for implementing flexible automation, machine monitoring, virtual cells, Manufacturing Execution Systems, and other elements of Industry 4.0 Teaches a new method, Value Network Mapping, to visualize large multi-product multi-machine production systems whose Value Streams share many processes Includes real success stories of Job Shop Lean implementation in a variety of production systems such as a forge shop, a machine shop, a fabrication facility and a shipping department Encourages any HMLV manufacturer planning to implement Job Shop Lean to leverage the co-curricular and extracurricular programs of an Industrial Engineering department

"Unprecedented" is the adjective most often ascribed to everything about Donald Trump. Trump @ Work is about the unprecedented impact that Donald Trump and his Presidency and style has had on attitudes and perceptions of leadership and management. This book brings a unique perspective about what has changed and what has not changed through humorous and true "bullets" and observations. Why do some leaders get fired for things that other leaders boast about? In spite of controversy, why do some initiatives still get implemented? Is implementation all that matters? Is empathy and credibility still critical to success? Why aren't there any instruction manuals about how to navigate the new workplace? These are not questions raised by just a few. These are questions everyone in the workplace is asking. Trump @ Work explores these questions and many more. It reveals how the rules of the game have changed for everyone seeking success or at least, to survive. It's hard enough to keep up with leadership and management trends. Donald Trump is making it more difficult, not intentionally, not through the tweets he writes, but by how he is challenging the long existing norms. Who knew that tweeting would become an established way of communicating to an organization? Who knew that in spite of constant searing criticism, one can disregard it and continue to follow an agenda? Who knew that preaching to supporters and ignoring naysayers is a way to manage? Whether you appreciate Donald Trump or not, he has had an impact on the thinking about leadership and management and the author precisely explores that impact in this book.