Lean is about building and improving stable and predictable systems and processes to deliver to customers high-quality products/services on time by engaging everyone in the organization. Combined with this, organizations need to create an environment of respect for people and continuous learning. It's all about people. People create the product or service, drive innovation, and create systems and processes, and with leadership buy-in and accountability to ensure sustainment with this philosophy, employees will be committed to the organization as they learn and grow personally and professionally. Lean is a term that describes a way of thinking about and managing companies as an enterprise. Becoming Lean requires the following: the continual pursuit to identify and eliminate waste; the establishment of efficient flow of both information and process; and an unwavering top-level commitment. The concept of continuous improvement applies to any process in any industry. Based on the contents of The Lean Practitioner's Field Book, the purpose of this series is to show, in detail, how any process can be improved by utilizing a combination of tasks and people tools and introduces the BASICS Lean (R) concept. The books are designed for all levels of Lean practitioners and introduce proven tools for analysis and implementation that go beyond the traditional point kaizen event. Each book can be used as a stand-alone volume or used in combination with other titles based on specific needs. Each book is chock-full of case studies and stories from the authors' own experiences in training organizations who have started or are continuing their Lean journey of continuous improvement. Contents include valuable lessons learned and each chapter concludes with questions pertaining to the focus of the chapter. Numerous photographs enrich and illustrate specific tools used in Lean methodology. Assess and Analyze: Discovering the Waste Consuming Your Profits explores the tools used to assess and analyze the process. It starts off with Learning to See waste and follows with the three analysis tools: mapping the product flow, documenting the full work of the operator, and implementing SMED or changeover reduction and closes with exploring Lean and change management.

Lean is about building and improving stable and predictable systems and processes to deliver to customers high-quality products/services on time by engaging everyone in the organization. Combined with this, organizations need to create an environment of respect for people and continuous learning. It's all about people. People create the product or service, drive innovation, and create systems and processes, and with leadership buy-in and accountability to ensure sustainment with this philosophy, employees will be committed to the organization as they learn and grow personally and professionally. Lean is a term that describes a way of thinking about and managing companies as an enterprise. Becoming Lean requires the following: the continual pursuit to identify and eliminate waste; the establishment of efficient flow of both information and process; and an unwavering top-level commitment. The concept of continuous improvement applies to any process in any industry. Based on the contents of The Lean Practitioners Field Book, the purpose of this series is to show, in detail, how any process can be improved utilizing a combination of tasks and people tools and introduces the BASICS Lean (R) concept. The books are designed for all levels of Lean practitioners and introduces proven tools for analysis and implementation that go beyond the traditional point kaizen event. Each book can be used as a stand-alone volume or used in combination with other titles based on specific needs. Each book is chock-full of case studies and stories from the authors' own experiences in training organizations that have started or are continuing their Lean journey of continuous improvement. Contents include valuable lessons learned and each chapter concludes with questions pertaining to the focus of the chapter. Numerous photographs enrich and illustrate specific tools used in Lean methodology Check: Identifying Gaps on the Path to Success Transactional Processes contains chapters on implementing Lean, Kanban systems, line balancing, Heijunka-leveling, and the +QDIP process plus case studies of machine shop and transactional implementations. The implementation model describes the different approaches to Lean, compares them to Toyota, and explains each implementation model.

What goes on in a small firm that lives or dies by its capacity to innovate? How are decisions made on new product development, and how does that feed into the ecological, social and financial sustainability of the firm? This book answers the questions through an in-depth look at a small business that manufactures high-end carpet yarn. Using advanced analytical techniques to interrogate rich qualitative data, the book draws together established theories of decision-making and new product development, coupled with thinking about business sustainability to improve our understanding of this important area of business practice. The book further reinforces the importance and role of organizational learning in organizational decision-making, based on novel analysis of empirically developed qualitative data.

Regardless of its size or nature, every industry generates waste and is responsible for imple-menting the practices of pollution prevention and waste minimization in its day-to-day operations. Whether it's dirty water or toxic wastes, industrial pollution is all the same in one way: it reduces a business's profitability. Identification of Cleaner Production Improvement Opportunities urges environmental, health, and safety department managers, industrial environmental consultants, and personnel across all chemical engineering industries to employ a forward-thinking and tested technology of process improvements that will reduce waste generation, reduce the resources requirements to manufacture a product, and, most important to the life of a business, increase revenues.
This new publication consists of the following five sections:
* Section I: The relationships among cleaner production, waste, cleaner production analyses, and their business values
* Section II: How to develop a cleaner production program
* Section III: The data requirements and data analyses for the opportunity identification step
* Section IV: The opportunity identification step
* Section V: How to assess and rank the best ideas

Industry expert and chair of AIChE's Environmental Division, Kenneth Mulholland introduces methodology in this manual that has been used to identify process improvement opportunities for more than fifty processes, including pharmaceutical intermediates, elastomer monomers and polymers, polyester intermediates and polymers, batch processes such as agricultural products and paints, chlorofluoro-hydrocarbon and chlorocarbon processes, and specialty chemicals and waste water treatment facilities. With no product changes or new technology necessary, these process improvements have produced a 200 percent internal rate of return and reduced waste generation by 40 percent to 50 percent.

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.

For too long, business has focused on short-term cost advantages through low-cost country sourcing with little regard for the longer-term implications of global sustainability. Purchasing and Supply Chain Management, Second Edition, not only fully addresses the environmental, social and economic challenges of how companies manage purchasing and supply chains, but also delves deeper into emerging areas such as modern slavery, digital technologies and circular supply chains. In addition to explaining the basic principles and processes of both purchasing and supply chain management, the book evaluates how to develop strategic and sustainable purchasing and supply chain management. Our key message is that purchasing and supply chain management needs to focus on value creation rather than cost cutting. This requires the development of new purchasing and supply chain models that involve circular supply structures, supply chain transparency and collaboration with new stakeholders in traditional sourcing and supply chain settings. Aimed at students, educators and practitioners the book integrates sustainability into each chapter as a core element of purchasing and supply chain management. This second edition incorporates new examples and case studies from industry throughout, striking a balance between theoretical frameworks and guidelines for implementation in practice.

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.

Based on the IOM's estimate of 44,000 deaths annually, medical errors rank as the eighth leading cause of death in the U.S. Clearly medical errors are an epidemic that needs to be contained. Despite these numbers, patient safety and medical errors remain an issue for physicians and other clinicians. This book bridges the issues related to patient safety by providing clinically relevant, vignette-based description of the areas where most problems occur. Each vignette highlights a particular issue such as communication, human facturs, E.H.R., etc. and provides tools and strategies for improving quality in these areas and creating a safer environment for patients.

Belief is not knowledge, but we tend to hold our beliefs as if they represent knowledge, selecting whatever evidence is required to justify them. And because humans tend to cling to their beliefs as truths, organizations often ignore the need for change, no matter how urgent that need. From Belief to Knowledge: Achieving and Sustaining an Adaptive Culture in Organizations offers potential change agents an integrative analysis and treatment of the problem of organizational learning. It demonstrates the importance of looking beneath beliefs and assumptions to find the roots and persistent influences that preserve them. It gives us a much broader definition of organizational knowledge than that associated with information technology and the currently popular idea of knowledge as an asset. Furthermore, it provides an alternative view of culture and change, one that is defined by the ability to continually align collective beliefs with reality. "Douglas and Wykowski...answer the question that lingers in the minds of many managers - What does organizational learning mean and how does it influence ongoing organizational success?" - Lee Newick, Shell Downstream Rather than offer simple recipes, this book shows how good leaders can evolve and sustain an adaptive culture that develops knowledge through purposeful human interaction. It explores key dynamics of learning, considers the diversity of beliefs present in any group, and demonstrates ways that those leaders can explore and encourage the potential of both the group and individuals within the group. "Although this book is geared to organizational change, it has the potential to change all areas of human endeavor." - David Julian Hodges, City University of New York

The ISO 9001/2 series of standards for Quality Managment Systems is of increasing importance to the food and drink industry; it functions as an outward and visible sign to customers that the industry has a defined quality management system that has been independently appraised and is regularly audited. ISO 9001/2 certification can enable a company to reduce the audit burden from a multitude of customers and can also help the manufacturer or distributor involved in auditing its own suppliers. Above all, it may improve the effectiveness of its own operation and profits.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

This book is the leader among the new generation of text books on quality that follow the systems approach to creating quality in products and services; the earlier generations focused solely on parts of the system such as statistical methods, process control, and management philosophy. It follows the premise that the body of knowledge and tools documented by quality professionals and researchers, when employed in designing, creating and delivering the product will lead to product quality, customer satisfaction and reduced waste. The tools employed at the different stages of the product creation cycle are covered in this book using real world examples along with their theoretical bases, strengths and weaknesses. This textbook can be used for training - from shop floor personnel to college majors in business and engineering to practicing professionals. Graduate students training as researchers in the quality field will also find useful material. The book has been used as the text for a Professional Series Massive Open Online Course offered by the Technical University of Munich on edX.org, through which tens of thousands of participants from all over the world have received training in quality methods. According to Professor Dr. Holly Ott, who chose the book for the course, the text is one of the main factors contributing to success of this MOOC. The Third Edition has been fully revised to be friendly for self-study, reflects changes in the standards referenced such as ISO 9000, and includes new examples of application of statistical tools in health care industry. Features: Reviews the history of quality movement in the U.S. and abroad Discusses Quality Cost analysis and quality's impact on a company's bottom line Explains finding customer needs and designing the product using House of Quality Covers selection of product parameters using DOE and reliability principles Includes control charts to control processes to make the product right-the-first-time Describes use of capability indices Cp and Cpk to meet customer needs Presents problem solving methodology and tools for continuous improvement Offers ISO 9000, Baldrige and Six Sigma as templates for creating a quality system

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.

The essential complement to the pathbreaking book Competitive Strategy, Michael E. Porter's Competitive Advantage explores the underpinnings of competitive advantage in the individual firm. With over 30 printings in English and translated into thirteen languages, this second volume in Porter's landmark trilogy describes how a firm actually gains an advantage over its rivals. Competitive Advantage introduces a whole new way of understanding what a firm does. Porter's groundbreaking concept of the value chain disaggregates a company into "activities," or the discrete functions or processes that represent the elemental building blocks of competitive advantage.

Now an essential part of international business thinking, Competitive Advantage takes strategy from broad vision to an internally consistent configuration of activities. Its powerful framework provides the tools to understand the drivers of cost and a company's relative cost position. Porter's value chain enables managers to isolate the underlying sources of buyer value that will command a premium price, and the reasons why one product or service substitutes for another. He shows how competitive advantage lies not only in activities themselves but in the way activities relate to each other, to supplier activities, and to customer activities. Competitive Advantage also provides for the first time the tools to strategically segment an industry and rigorously assess the competitive logic of diversification.

That the phrases "competitive advantage" and "sustainable competitive advantage" have become commonplace is testimony to the power of Porter's ideas. Competitive Advantage has guided countless companies, business school students, and scholars in understanding the roots of competition. Porter's work captures the extraordinary complexity of competition in a way that makes strategy both concrete and actionable.

Risk Management Professionals seek to identify, analyze, and document the risks associated with a company's business operations, as well as monitor the effectiveness of risk management processes and implement needed changes. The PMI Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP) (R) certification not only highlights the ability to identify and assess project risks, mitigate threats, and capitalize on opportunities, but it also enhances and protects the needs of the organization. Gaining distinction as a PMI-RMP sets the Risk Management Professional apart from other professionals and brings credit to an organization. The exams from the Project Management Institute are not easy, so whether you are running a course as an instructor or studying by yourself, you need a good study guide to maximize time spent studying and one which enhances the chances of passing the exam. Test takers sitting for the exam need a study guide that suggests which study materials are best to read in preparation for the exam, presents exercises to enhance learning and understanding, and provides sample exam questions. Most study guides just explain the contents of the exam without providing the tools to maximize learning. Klaus Nielsen, an Authorized Training Partner with PMI, translates the PMI examination content outline for April 2022 into what people need to do and know in preparation and provides them with exercises and prep questions as a quick and easy check to ensure they are on the right path in preparation for taking the exam. This book helps maximize the chance of passing the exam.

"A highly readable and yet comprehensive book on network businesses that have become governable with the advent of cloud and big data computing. Vivek Kale is a master of simplifying the complex world of network theory and its relevance to business." -Jagdish N. Sheth, Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Marketing, Emory University Agile Network Businesses: Collaboration, Coordination, and Competitive Advantage reflects the shift from traditional networks to virtual and agile networks that enable businesses to operate dynamically, thereby representing markets more closely. This book enables IT managers and business decision-makers to understand clearly what network businesses and enterprises are, what they can do for them, and how to realize them. Customers in geographically dispersed markets are demanding higher quality products in a greater variety, at lower cost, and in a shorter time. Thus, enterprises have moved from a few centralized and vertically integrated facilities to geographically dispersed networks of capabilities, competencies and resources, which are the core of network businesses. Enterprises are now constructing more fluid network businesses in which each member facility focuses on differentiation and relies increasingly on its partners, suppliers, and customers to provide the rest. Network businesses have emerged as an organizational paradigm for collaboration and coordination across loosely connected individual organizations. This pragmatic book: Introduces network solutions and distributed systems that are a first step towards enabling a network enterprise. It also gives a detailed description of networks and agent system that have paved the road to network enterprises. Describes the basics of service-oriented architecture (SOA), cloud computing, and big data that are essential to network enterprises. Details the distinguishing aspects of network enterprises, which include virtual enterprises, management of network enterprises, and collaborative network enterprises. Covers such major application areas as supply, manufacturing, e-business, platform, social and wireless sensor networks. Introduces decision networks in the context of supply chain networks This book reinterprets the traditional supply chain in terms of the flow of decisions, information, and materials, which leads to reconfiguring the traditional supply chain network into mutually separate decision networks (e.g., fourth-party logistics or 4PL), information networks (e.g., wireless sensor networks), and logistics networks (e.g., third-party logistics or 3PL).

Written for those starting a career in IT or whose career is well advanced, this career guide shows how to blaze a path to success through the jungle of modern IT. With a career spanning five decades, the author shares lessons he learned the hard way so readers do not have to learn them the hard way. By emphasizing the importance of business processes and applications to IT, this book explains how to understand the value and positioning of hardware and software technology in order to make appropriate decisions. It addresses the importance of IT architecture and the roles service and systems management play. It also explains service level agreements (SLAs) and provides sample SLAs. Readers learn how to conduct IT assessments using SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis. It also shows how to use root-cause analysis (RCA) to detect the sources of failure and poor performance. An overview of risk management and the steps involved in developing a business continuity plan are also included. The book looks at all facets of an IT professional's career. It explains how to build an IT team and examines the roles and responsibilities within the team. It shows how to provide professional customer care to IT clients. Business executives recognize the importance of IT, and this book shows technology professionals how to thrive in the business world. It covers: Making effective presentations Report and proposal writing Negotiating and persuasion skills Running productive meetings Time and stress management The book also discusses such important career skills as listening, continual and incremental learning, and communicating at all levels. From its templates and checklists to its comprehensive and holistic view of a successful IT career, this book is an indispensable guide for every professional working in IT today and tomorrow.

Written by a recognized leader in the manufacturing industry with nearly two decades of experience working for Toyota, this book supplies a firsthand account of the realities behind implementing the Toyota Production System (TPS). The Toyota Kaizen Continuum: A Practical Guide to Implementing Lean presents authoritative insight on how to use the TPS to drive operational value and improvement across all segments of an organization. Highlighting valuable lessons learned directly from the TPS masters at the Toyota factories in Japan, John Stewart provides a time-tested approach for implementing a process of continuous improvement. Delving into his wide-ranging experience-that includes time as a team member on the assembly line and managing the vehicle assembly division for Toyota's largest European operation in the United Kingdom-he explains how to get the process started, how to get senior management excited about the possibilities, and details a process for implementing the TPS in your organization. Written by an industry veteran named one of the Top 10 Automotive Executives by Automotive News in 2007 Unveils the methods used within the walls of the world's premier manufacturing organization Illustrates valuable lessons learned with real-world examples of TPS implementations Describes five simple steps for executing change in any organization The book includes case studies that illustrate real-life successes and failures behind the walls of the world's largest automobile manufacturing organization. Detailing a five-step process for executing improvement initiatives, it supplies you with the tools and understanding of the core principles of the TPS needed to implement and sustain a culture of continuous improvement in your organization.