Digital transformation is a business concern; it is no longer just IT that must get things done. The disruptive force of start-ups focusing on IT-based services that can be consumed through mobile devices cannot be underestimated -- These start-ups eat away at the high-margin services provided by incumbents, leaving lower margin products and services that are rapidly being commoditized. This is happening in all industry sectors and it is the ones who are best able to adjust, innovate, and improve their service offerings that will survive. The question is: What do you need to do to ensure that your organization is one of the survivors? The core of the solution to the problem is to radically improve the way the IT organization works together with the business. To be clear, the digital transformation of your business depends on that relatively small group of people in the basement, or other out-of-the-way location, who make sure that your IT services work. So, building a cooperative model is vital for the success of the business. Which model has proven its worth in many industries? It is the application of Lean principles that gives organizations an advantage in delivering their products and services to their customers. Transforming your organization to high performance is, above all, a people-based movement with the acquisition and, most importantly, application of knowledge and skills necessary for the high performance way of working at its core. In teams, from boardroom to work floor, building a new way of thinking and acting is essential. This book aims to give insight into the reasons why you and your organization must consciously act to apply Lean principles to your IT organization. It explains the phases organizations go through as they start out with their initial attempts to gain advantages from Lean tools to the phase in which they reap the strategic benefits of Lean applied to IT. The real work of the transformation is described from two different perspectives: Leadership and Team. This book describes a complete set of principles, practices and tools In order to make the right decisions along the winding route of your transformation. The people who will guide, support and drive your transformation are the leaders and tem members who understand and apply those principles, practice and tools: your Lean IT Experts.

Originally published in 1995, Beyond Capital Labor is a comprehensive empirical study about how and how much technology and regional contextual factors may influence company production and productivity growth. The book constitutes a conceptually consistent and empirically efficient study and provides a consolidated model and an analytical framework to examine the contributions of technology and regional factors to company production and productivity growth. This work goes beyond the current state and brings many scattered theoretical components together to establish an integrated model.

Strategic planning is the starting point for projects and often the primary reason for a project's success or failure. It has the potential to enable every organisation to realise its ideals and actualise its values, whether it be a small start-up business, a large international company or even an entire society. Project leaders and project-orientated organisations need to understand strategic planning to recognise their position and environment, and make rational decisions when selecting and defining their projects and programs. But, those same principles can have broader, more profound, and more ambitious applications too. Project: Strategy is a practical handbook that enables organisations of any size, and employees at all levels within them, to form strategic plans and actively contribute to them throughout a project's development. Rather than focus on superficial exercises, this book draws from knowledge outside of business and management - humanities, philosophy, psychology, technology, and engineering - to create a holistic view and a depth of understanding you would never achieve with SWOT analysis alone. Taking the reader on a pragmatic journey, it teaches self-reflexion, social responsibility and creative thinking with application to their projects and plans, but also to their working relationships and to their organisations. This book is also an ideal introductory book to progressive programs on strategic planning, with a focus on collaborative work, open strategy, and open strategic planning on a social level. It provides a wealth of learning tools and case studies to demonstrate best practice. This is the ideal guide to project planning for anyone that wants their planning decisions to be as wise as they are savvy.

The use of new information and communication technologies both inside the courts and in private online dispute resolution services is quickly changing everyday conflict management. However, the implications of the increasingly disruptive role of technology in dispute resolution remain largely undiscussed. In this book, assistant professor of law and digitalisation Riikka Koulu examines the multifaceted phenomenon of dispute resolution technology, focusing specifically on private enforcement, which modern technology enables on an unforeseen scale. The increase in private enforcement confounds legal structures and challenges the nation-state's monopoly on violence. And, in this respect, the author argues that the technology-driven privatisation of enforcement - from direct enforcement of e-commerce platforms to self-executing smart contracts in the blockchain - brings the ethics of law's coercive nature out into the open. This development constitutes a new, and dangerous, grey area of conflict management, which calls for transparency and public debate on the ethical implications of dispute resolution technology.

This book provides the latest research advances in the field of system reliability assurance and engineering. It contains reference material for applications of reliability in system engineering, offering a theoretical sound background with adequate numerical illustrations. Included are concepts pertaining to reliability analysis, assurance techniques and methodologies, tools, and practical applications of system reliability modeling and allocation. The collection discusses various soft computing techniques like artificial intelligence and particle swarm optimization approach for reliability assessment. Importance of differentiating between the optimal release time and testing stop time of the software has been explicitly discussed and presented in the book. Features: Creates understanding of the costs associated with complex systems Covers reliability measurement of engineering systems Incorporates an efficient effort-based expenditure policy incorporating cost and reliability criteria Provides information for optimal testing stop and release time of software system Presents software performance and security layout Addresses reliability prediction and its maintenance through advanced analytics techniques Overall, System Reliability Management: Solutions and Techniques is a collaborative and interdisciplinary approach for better communication of problems and solutions to increase the performance of the system for better utilization and resource management.

This book offers a new understanding of innovation in the built environment. The ways meaning of innovation is constructed has important implications for policymakers, project managers, academics and students. Through a longitudinal research study into innovation in firms and projects, the book addresses some key themes, challenges and concerns that practitioners face when managing innovation in the built environment. It examines the key drivers for innovation in the construction, engineering and infrastructure firms and projects. In particular, the questions of how and why innovation becomes recognised and sustained over time are explored. Different theoretical perspectives are considered to explain different aspects of innovation. This includes sensemaking, organisational and individual identity, storytelling and narration. The book has practical implications for how organisational activities become labelled as 'innovation' and for what purpose. It shares some lived stories of innovation as mobilised by practising managers. The connectivity between the formal narratives of innovation at the policy level and the lived narratives of innovation articulated by practitioners is explored. Combining the theory with practice, this book presents an insightful view on the implications of innovation in the business world today.

Using Toyota's principles for product and process development, this book focuses the implementation of the Lean system during the past 10 years in dozens of corporations across various industries. The book highlights all steps on the journey from common trouble area to remarkable results. As it is written by a manager for other managers, it contains real work discoveries and insights. The author provides case studies from many different fields of application. The reader gains insight on US and European companies that successfully streamlined their innovation and product-development processes. These companies have overcome difficult periods and major challenges thanks to the ability to innovate with new Lean methodologies and, above all, a new workplace culture and mindset. The goal of this book is to help managers successfully apply Lean principles in the innovation and development area of their company while benefitting from the author's lessons learned during his many years of capitalized experience. This book provides a comprehensive framework that supports, step-by-step, the successful application of Lean principles in the innovation and development areas of the company. Readers learn how to drastically reduce the time required to develop products and discover and eliminate hidden costs and critical waste while increasing value for customers.

Few people are better able to describe how to survive in a war zone than those who have seen, experienced, and lived it first-hand. Comprised of a collection of original stories from international contributors, Surviving the International War Zone: Security Lessons Learned and Stories from Police and Military Peacekeeping Forces contains true accounts of unimaginable scenarios that could only occur in war-torn and conflict-ridden areas. Presenting accounts written by military and police officers who lived in different dangerous regions across the world, the book offers an inside look at the lives of the officers and the local people living in the war zone environment. Covering many facets of daily life, the book helps readers understand how to survive in deadly terrain. With contributions from soldiers and law enforcement personnel from 13 different countries who have lived and served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, Cambodia, Haiti, and Liberia, the book includes practical tips for day-to-day life in a war zone. It examines topics such as: Surviving extreme temperatures and staying healthy Interacting with the indigenous population and cultural awareness Adjusting to the challenges of limited technology and resources Protecting oneself from the imminent threat of violence that is present in all war-torn regions Enhanced with photographs from the war zone, the stories in this volume range from accounts of unspeakable torture, to descriptions of deplorable living conditions, to moments of humor. Some of the stories will make you laugh; others may make you cry. Ultimately, the book provides an unparalleled insight into the full range of deep-seated and sometimes conflicting emotions of the people who have lived and served in war zones and have come home to tell about it.

Considering that the biggest machines that do the most work are made up of smaller machines and components, it becomes obvious that when a large machine breaks, it is normally due to small components acting antagonistically. Detailing a time-tested method for increasing productivity and lowering operational costs, Spend Analysis and Specification Development Using Failure Interpretation explains how to establish performance-based procurement specifications for the components, devices, and items that contribute the most to operational downtime and repair/replacement costs. The book emphasizes the critical need to perform both spend and failure analysis in order to develop a procurement document, which will ultimately reduce overall costs. Accompanied by downloadable resources with helpful material such as, specification checklists, case study worksheets, form letters, and return on investment (ROI) worksheets that you can customize to your needs, the text discusses how to: Identify the products that will cost the most if they fail Develop performance-based procurement specifications to reduce direct and indirect costs Examine cost analysis as it relates to operations, maintenance, and production Determine effective criteria based on properties, test results, and standards for each operation Written by an industry expert with decades of experience giving seminars, training customers and associates, and authoring numerous papers and articles, the text provides the real-world understanding of the influential components and materials' physical properties needed to engage in effective failure and spend analysis. It addresses product submission and monitoring and includes helpful tools so you can immediately get started on conducting your own cost-saving analysis.

Everyone has heard the phrase about doing twice the work in half the time, but instead of focusing only on time, this book focuses on driving increased output with consistently less input. Implementing Lean: Twice the Output with Half the Input! teaches readers not only about Lean and its major concepts, but it drives the leader toward implementing a true Lean system. The authors have used the methodologies in this book everywhere from hospitals to service industries to manufacturing plants in order to impact businesses by providing proven principles, techniques, and approaches that yield substantial improvement to any business, small or large, in any sector. Learn about the benefits of implementing Lean in your company as the authors walk you through the major components as well as show you how to implement them. This guide is already being used by Lean Practitioners every day on shop floors to educate and refresh how tools are used in real-world applications.

This book looks at how and where human resources (HR) meets quality management, and the implications of this. Most organizations, whatever their size or sector, struggle with demonstrating the value of continuous improvement (CI) and/or HR initiatives at a time when economic conditions are challenging in the global marketplace. Both within the UK and internationally, organizations will use continuous improvement and business excellence (BE) as a means of not only improving performance internally, but also to secure external recognition of their management practices, including people management, and therefore increase their competitiveness in their market. This text explores the potential overlaps between the two fields by considering how to address the development and implementation of a strategy to integrate CI/BE and human resource management. Practical and applied, this text provides: A brief overview of the concepts of CI and BE An analysis of the strategic factors impacting on an organization's decision-making around adopting a CI/BE approach, and the impact this may have on people management and development practices A review of some major external CI/BE accreditations and awards, and their value and how they might be used An analysis of the possible problems and outcomes which could be achieved by adopting such a CI/BE strategy and integrating it with people management and development activities This book is ideal for any professional HR or performance improvement practitioner who wants to understand how a CI/BE approach could benefit their organization, as well as postgraduate students of HR or quality management.

Everyone has heard the phrase about doing twice the work in half the time, but instead of focusing only on time, this book focuses on driving increased output with consistently less input. Implementing Lean: Twice the Output with Half the Input! teaches readers not only about Lean and its major concepts, but it drives the leader toward implementing a true Lean system. The authors have used the methodologies in this book everywhere from hospitals to service industries to manufacturing plants in order to impact businesses by providing proven principles, techniques, and approaches that yield substantial improvement to any business, small or large, in any sector. Learn about the benefits of implementing Lean in your company as the authors walk you through the major components as well as show you how to implement them. This guide is already being used by Lean Practitioners every day on shop floors to educate and refresh how tools are used in real-world applications.

Science and technology have long been regarded as important determinants of economic growth. Edwin Mansfield (1971, pp. 1- 2), a pioneer in the economics of technological change, noted: Technological change is an important, if not the most important, factor responsible for economic growth . . . without question, [it] is one of the most important determinants of the shape and evolution of the American economy. Science and technology are even more important in the "new economy," with its greater emphasis on the role of intellectual property and knowledge transfer. Therefore, it is unfortunate that most individuals rarely have the opportunity to explore the economic implications of science and technology. As a result, the antecedents and consequences of technological change are poorly understood by many in the general public. This lack of understanding is reflected in a recent survey conducted by the National Science Board (2000), summarized in Science & Engineering Indicators. ' As shown in Table 1. 1, the findings of the survey indicated that many Americans, despite a high level of interests in such matters, are not as well-informed about technological issues as they are about other policy issues. As shown in the table, individuals self assess, based on a scale from 1 to 100, their interest in science and technology policy issues as being relatively high, yet they self assess their knowledge or informedness about these issues relatively lower.

Project management is at a crossroads: There is a pressing need to rethink the approaches used in initiating, managing and governing projects, programmes and change initiatives. The aim of this book is to progress the dialogue around project practice by shifting the focus from instrumental methods and prescriptive techniques towards a context-sensitive consideration of people, strategy and change. Projects are initiated to deliver agreed outputs that can be translated into meaningful outcomes capable of satisfying the wishes and expectations for improvement and development. Yet, people, strategy and change, which are largely ignored by the conventional bodies of knowledge, are clearly central to the sustainable and enduring success of projects, efforts and initiatives. The volume brings together some of the best writing by leading authorities on key topics including trust, ethics, people, psychology, requirements, project performance, audits, uncertainty, anti-fragility, strategic initiatives, governance, change management and commercial management. The collection offers an invaluable new resource for informed managers looking to engage with the latest thinking and research.

Companies all over the world try their best to improve their business by implementing efforts such as Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, or a combination of the two methodologies. Logic would tell you that these two methods would be the right approach because you would have an improvement method that, through Lean, reduces waste and make value flow, while Six Sigma reduces and controls variation. If this were true, then why is it that many of these initiatives simply aren't delivering quantifiable bottom-line results? After having studied many of these on-going improvement efforts, the author believes that these efforts are missing an important focusing mechanism. That is, most of these improvement efforts attempt to improve "everything" rather than finding that key part of the system that should be assessed and improved, the constraining factor, and then focusing the improvement efforts there and only there. The hallmark of this book is how to first locate this constraining factor and then determine the best way to exploit it to generate extreme profits, radically improve on-time delivery of products or services and increase market share by outperforming your competition at rates you never expected possible. How do we do this? By combining Lean and Six Sigma with the Theory of Constraints. This book demonstrates both the basics of improvement (i.e. results) with the "how to" (i.e. the methodology) in a very simple format that everyone within your organization will understand.

Provides an integrated overview of methods for controlling the cost, schedule and quality of a construction project. It emphasizes project diagnostics and analysis of the patterns of a project and covers estimating, procurement, construction management, planning, CPM, claims and data collection. It also covers the major planning, scheduling and estimating software packages from Primavera, G2, Computer Controls Inc., Timberline and others.

The growth of global corporations has led to the development of new business strategies whose complexity and configuration rest on corporate networks; corporate cross-culture and intangible corporate and product assets. In global markets, corporations compete in a competitive marketspace dimension, in other words, competitive boundaries in which space is not a stable element of the decision-making process, but a competitive factor whose complexity depends on markets increasingly characterized by time-based competition and over-supply. In view of today's fierce competition from US and Southeast Asian corporations, this book highlights global business development policies based on innovation, sustainability and intangible assets. The book assesses competitive business management from a global perspective, examining business development policies linked to the profitability of global firms. It forces readers to actively think through the most fundamental policies developed by global firms in the current competitive landscape and provides answers to questions such as: What are the new drivers of global capitalism?; How do global businesses deal with new local nationalism?; Which governance systems and behavioural norms qualify global businesses?; What are the main business policies that characterize competitive business management in a global competition perspective? Competitive Business Management neatly explains the global business management domain and helps readers to gain an understanding of global development business policies.

Collaboration in supply chains means managing the chain beyond traditional or transactional methods. It involves rethinking the way your business is managed, both internally and externally, and the ways in which employees and partners relate to each other. Stuart Emmett and Barry Crocker's book explains how a relationship-based approach to supply chain management can transform business; how to organise your business internally for effective supply chain relationships and how to transform your external supply chain using relationship marketing, customer relationship management and supply chain partnerships. One of the key distinguishing characteristics of a high performing supply chain is the presence of strategic trust. With strategic trust, the parties have access to each other's strategic plans; relevant cost information and forecasts are shared; risks and rewards are addressed openly. This book explains how to embed a culture of inter-company trust and to realise the benefits of improved supply chain relationships.

Here is the first comprehensive and systematic explanation of the management system that drives the world's leading automaker. The development of JIT production at Toyota and the company's achievement of unprecedented levels of productivity were made possible by its supportive, integrated management system. This book reveals for the first time exactly how that management system works. It looks carefully at each of Toyota's seven management subsystems and how they work as an integrated whole.

The third book in the Healthcare Payment Systems series, Prospective Payment Systems examines the various types of prospective payment systems (PPS) used by healthcare providers and third-party payers. Emphasizing the basic elements of PPS, it considers the many variations of payment for hospital inpatient and outpatient services, skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies, long-term hospital care, and rehabilitation facilities along with other providers. The book describes the anatomy of PPS, including cost reports, adjudication features and processes, relative weights, and payment processes. It outlines the features and documentation requirements for Medicare Severity Diagnosis Related Groups (MS-DRGs), the Medicare Ambulatory Payment Classifications (APCs), Medicare HHPPS, Medicare Skilled Nursing Resource Utilization Groups (RUGs), and private third-party payers. Provides a framework for understanding and analyzing the characteristics of any PPS Discusses Medicare prospective payment systems and approaches Includes specific references to helpful resources, both online and in print Facilitates a clear understanding of the complexities related to PPS covering specific topics at a high level and revisiting similar topics to reinforce understanding Complete with a detailed listing of the acronyms most-commonly used in healthcare coding, billing, and reimbursement, the book includes a series of case studies that illustrate key concepts. It concludes with a discussion of the challenges with PPS including compliance and overpayment issues to provide you with the real-world understanding needed to make sense of any PPS.

An effective visual communication system can help manufacturing employees eliminate significant waste from daily tasks. From work-zone color coding to posted metrics, visual controls clarify and simplify the path to enhanced processes and profits. Leaving little to chance, Visual Controls: Applying Visual Management to the Factory provides a detailed explanation of how to apply the Lean principles of 5S to convert your factory to a fully functioning Visual Workplace. It covers the range of methods that collectively compose an effective visual management system and clearly explains management's role in creating a Lean strategy to accomplish the transformation. This book: Considers visual Kanban, material replenishment, and the implementation of a visual maintenance department Details management's role in implementing and sustaining a visual factory Covers the range of visual tools including tool boards, shadow boards, metrics communication boards, and tool check cards From plant layout and department setup to visual tools and parts, this book facilitates the comprehensive understanding required to initiate positive change through visual communication. The authors supply authoritative insight on how to hasten the required cultural changes, as well as step-by-step instruction for creating visual shadow boards. They also highlight time-tested methods for measuring progress and performance with improved accuracy.

Organizations enjoy two kinds of strategic advantages. One is transitory: being in the right place with the right products at the right time. The other comes from having first class management and instituting processes that mobilize an organization, keeping in ahead of the competition. Which would you like to count on for your organization's success?Integrating ERP, CRM, Supply Chain Management, and Smart Materials explores how to create business opportunities and reap savings by: Restructuring and updating of ERP and CRM software as it integrates supply chain management and delivers new killer applications Evolving opportunities that will develop from the implementation of smart materials, automatic identification, classification systems, and quality assurance projects Auditing the implementation, operation, and maintenance of ERP and CRM software as well as the corrective action taken on the basis of resultsInternet commerce, online supply chain, and advances in technology - all available at increasingly lower costs - make systems of the past obsolete. However, just as new technology creates new opportunities, it can also create unforeseen consequences. By binding a wealth of interdependent issues between the covers of one book, Integrating ERP, CRM, Supply Chain Management, and Smart Materials gives you the tools you need to create proprietary, high value-added solutions.

The philosophy of kaizen, which simply means continuous improvement, needs to adopted by any organization seeking to implement lean improvements that go beyond cost cutting. Kaizen events are opportunities to make focused changes in the workplace. Kaizen for the Shopfloor takes readers through the critical steps for conducting a very effective kaizen event: one that is well planned, well implemented, and well documented. As the newest addition to the Shingo Prize Winning Shopfloor Series, Kaizen for the Shopfloordistills the complexities of jumpstarting lean processes into an easily accessible format for those frontline employees who make lean possible. About the Shopfloor Series: Put proven improvement tools in the hands of your entire workforce! Progressive shopfloor improvement techniques are imperative for manufacturers who want to stay competitive and to achieve world class excellence. And it's the comprehensive education of all shopfloor workers that ensures full participation and success when implementing new programs. The Shopfloor Series books make practical information accessible to everyone by presenting major concepts and tools in simple, clear language and at a reading level that has been adjusted for operators by skilled instructional designers. One main idea is presented every two to four pages so that the book can be picked up and put down easily. Each chapter begins with an overview and ends with a summary section. Helpful illustrations are used throughout. Other topics in the Shopfloor Series: Kanban, 5S, Quick Changeover, Mistake-Proofing, Just-in-Time, TPM, Cellular Manufacturing

For more than 50 years, organizations of all types have struggled to achieve lasting benefits from the many tools and programs associated with various continuous-improvement initiatives. In fact, the notion of "continuous" improvement is largely a misnomer -- for many organizations, continuous improvement has been anything but continuous. Responding to this challenge, Hearing the Voice of the Shingo Principles chronicles key insights that went into development of the Shingo Model for Operational Excellence at Utah State University. While responsible for the Shingo Prize at USU, the author observed that even recipients -- theoretically, the best of the best -- were experiencing this same up-and-down phenomenon. It was as though many of these organizations were reviewed on their very best days but then started declining from that point forward. To build long-term credibility of the Shingo Prize, the author and his team had to understand what was causing such wide variation in results and make certain they were only recognizing those organizations that could demonstrate sustainability of improvements over the long term. They found that sustainability depended less on application of the tools for improvement than on embedding principles deep into the culture of the organization from top to bottom and side to side. This book helps leaders understand their role in building sustainable cultures of enterprise excellence - That is, how to keep the entire enterprise focused on guiding principles that will change beliefs, behaviors, and the overall mindset. In addition, managers will learn how to align systems with principles so that they drive ideal, principle-based behaviors - the goal is for every leader to realign their values with the voice of principles and become an example so that every associate becomes self-motivated to continuously improve every aspect for which they are accountable.

Knowledge and Practice in Business and Organisations contributes to scholarly understanding of knowledge and practice, mapping the conceptual terrain, providing a critical review of debates in the field and setting out key theoretical perspectives. Knowledge and practice are explored in a range of organisational and policy settings through six context-specific discussions. The collection helps shape the field, identify areas for future research inquiry, and suggest implications for practitioners. The range of sites of inquiry represented in the book (e.g. craft working, accounting, public sector organisations, creative industries, health care, and so on) make the book distinctive, enabling the reader to connect debates and ideas from across a range of sectors and disciplines. The book charts different currents of debate which have hitherto tended to remain unconnected. In one accessible volume, this book provides an excellent introduction to a set of concepts that have animated scholarly conversations across a range of disciplines and provides cases and examples of practices which come from beyond any one particular sector. Aimed at researchers and academics in the field, this book is valuable source, helping define and progress the scholarly debate.