In this third book of the Shingo Model series, Continuous Improvement focuses on five of the Shingo Guiding Principles: seek perfection, embrace scientific thinking, focus on process, assure quality at the source, and improve flow and pull. Each chapter in Continuous Improvement is designed to enhance your comprehension of one or more aspects of the Continuous Improvement dimension of the Shingo Model and to increase your understanding of how the dimension interrelates with and complements the other principles in the Shingo Model. Ultimately, this explanation grounds the technical science of continuous improvement with a powerful social science that focuses on people development. It is this combination that creates the opportunity for improvement to be truly continuous. Because tacit learning is critical to deepening your continuous improvement knowledge, "Reader Challenges" are included throughout the text to encourage you to apply what you have read within the context of your own organization. This hands-on practice is necessary to understand the interrelatedness of principles, systems, and tools that are inherent in the Shingo Model. The Shingo Institute recognizes that "the transformation from traditional philosophy and practices to organizational excellence does not occur without the courage, creativity, and persistence of everyone in the organization-from executives to managers to team members on the frontline."

"Media, Masculinities, and the Machine" identifies a distinctive phenomenon in today's media culture - the contemporary male fantasy of 'suiting up' and pushing technology to its limits. The authors deconstruct this fantasy using two in-depth studies from American, British and global media: the social imagining of hi-tech in the long-running "Transformers" franchise and global Formula One motorsport, with links to numerous other areas of contemporary culture. By drawing on non-representational theory and the latest theories of affect while employing the method of autoethnography to explore what boys and men 'want' and say, the book offers a timely contribution to our understanding of contemporary cultural attachments. The book provides informative accounts of two instances united by their apparent gender focus and by their interest in ways of imagining high-tech. Tracking their theme through TV, cinema, toys, magazines, merchandising, and the culture of the gadget, the authors raise important questions about mediated masculinities today and propose a new theoretical framework for uncovering what is going on.

"Media, Masculinities, and the Machine" identifies a distinctive phenomenon in today's media culture - the contemporary male fantasy of 'suiting up' and pushing technology to its limits. The authors deconstruct this fantasy using two in-depth studies from American, British and global media: the social imagining of hi-tech in the long-running "Transformers" franchise and global Formula One motorsport, with links to numerous other areas of contemporary culture. By drawing on non-representational theory and the latest theories of affect while employing the method of autoethnography to explore what boys and men 'want' and say, the book offers a timely contribution to our understanding of contemporary cultural attachments. The book provides informative accounts of two instances united by their apparent gender focus and by their interest in ways of imagining high-tech. Tracking their theme through TV, cinema, toys, magazines, merchandising, and the culture of the gadget, the authors raise important questions about mediated masculinities today and propose a new theoretical framework for uncovering what is going on. >