This book provides a short, concise overview of lean work design, which sees lean systems as the result of a systematic implementation of appropriate work processes. It discusses lean tools, but views tools only as a means of achieving a desirable work design and does not see the use of lean tools as a goal in themselves.
“Michael’s newest book is an absolute must read for both anyone entering the job market and those looking for growth in both their professional and personal lives. This is not your everyday book on success, as it touches on the success of many, but lets you in on the mental and emotional challenges each faced throughout the journey.” –Rocco Marrari, National Accounts Manager for EBE Technologies
“This is a must read for anyone who is interested achieving personal and professional success. Personal and professional growth is a key to success in our careers in this ever-changing environment. Dr. Edmondson provides questions to ask ourselves periodically as a performance temperature check along with some quizzes. He also provides real life examples of successful individuals and traits they implemented to achieve their success.” –Robert Sauselein, CHST, Northeast Operations Manager, HazTek, Inc.
“Michael connects the dots in this where the rubber meets the road with his 7 Characteristics of Success. He demonstrates the practical traits, backed up by fascinating research, to help you unfold your own success story.” –John P. Clark, CFPR- Financial Advisor and Retirement Living Expert
To improve an individual’s capacity to process information, the self-help genre has a tremendous need for a publication that both summarizes the latest research and provides case studies.
This book meets both needs and is valuable for any person interested in achieving personal or professional success.
Divided into seven chapters, this publication examines the theory and practice of success and includes research from history, psychology, sociology, cognitive neuroscience, animal behavior, and other areas.
There are several powerful statistical analysis software, such as Stata, SAS, and a host of other packages with different levels of elegance, completeness, and support. Preferred is Stata because of its extensive contributions from its users and reliable technical support. I will add Stata commands to perform all the examples of the book. The commands are simple and quick to run. I will provide an appendix with the list of the commands used in the manuscript, their syntax, and a brief description of the output they create.
Updated data for all the examples using the most recent available data. Provide the solutions in Excel and Stata and explain the meanings of the output to reinforce the subject and allow users to have another set of examples using another real-life data. Increased graphical representations to reinforce and clarify the concept.
This book approaches Lean as an exercise in work design – hence its title. To provide an integrated view of the different perspectives of lean work design, the book examines the major work design decisions from each perspective. It identifies the principles involved in lean operations and examines three existing theories of work design that help define lean operations: systems theory; system variance and the three buffers utilized to protect the system from variance (inventory, capacity and lead time); and organizational information processing theory.
The intended outcome for readers of this book will be an understanding of what is meant by Lean, how it applies to work design, and how it can be implemented in a variety of industries and organizational settings to make those organizations more competitive.
Brand new review in The CPA Journal. Check it out!
New interview from Voice America!
Business leaders rely on accounting data such as profit and calculated costs as a guide to whether they are making money. Should they?
Accounting was designed to report financial performance not model cash flow. Accruals can disconnect cash flow from the timing and extent to which it occurs. Statements of cash flow do not provide insight into what was bought and how efficiently it was used. Costs and profits are not absolute, they change based on the model you use to calculate them. To manage cash, you must manage what you buy and how effectively you use it. The largest expenditure for most companies is capacity; space, labor, materials, equipment, and technology. Unless you model and manage capacity effectively, you will not achieve the cash flow results you seek.
This book introduces capacity management, describes cash flow dynamics, and offers ideas about how to manage both. After reading it, you be able to see, understand, and manage cash flow as never before.
This book focuses on building and maintaining brand community in the emerging, dynamic space of social media. A theoretical model encompassing brand characteristics, relational factors, and characteristics of the brand user community is used as a structure to explain the various aspects of online brand communities. Further, the authors discuss how online brand communities differ from and can be used to complement traditional, face-to-face brand communities.
Brand managers, social media managers, and other members of the brand team will find this book useful for strategic decision making in both building and maintaining brand communities. In addition, this book will serve as a practical guide for working professionals enrolled in executive education degree programs as these programs continue to be developed in universities throughout the world.
Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have to approach open innovation differently than large companies. This practical guide on open innovation is expressly for entrepreneurs and managers in SMEs. The authors provide strategies, techniques, and “tricks of the trade” enabling SMEs to practice open innovation systems profitability and enhance the long-term value of their company. Included are tools such as brokers, auctions, crowdsourcing, technology transfer, and spin-ups, making it useful for people already in business, starting businesses, or seeking supplemental material for courses.
In today’s highly cluttered digital marketing environment there is a great need for marketers to fully comprehend a new breed of consumers. This book introduces the rising trend of SoLoMo consumers who embrace an omnichannel marketing approach. Consumers are rapidly moving between channels and platforms, which is why marketers are finding it so difficult to implement an integrated marketing strategy. Today’s consumers can check into a store with the use of a geolocation service (Foursquare), redeem an offer that is available, and share their comment on that platform. Then immediately they can post an update on their Facebook timeline, referencing the retailer’s page.
SoLoMo consumers have three basic characteristics: Social media engagement, Local findability, and smartphone Mobility. The authors conceptualize this new marketing approach, and provide examples to illustrate the case. The SoLoMo phenomenon has completely changed the way marketers need to operate their campaigns, from the way they conceive of their relationship with the customer to the way they design and operate campaigns.
Steel companies were at the birth of the modern business corporation. The first billion dollar corporation ever formed was U.S. Steel in 1901. By the mid-twentieth century the steel mill and the automobile plant were the two pillars upon which the twentieth century industrial economy rested.
Given the scale of capital and operations, vertical integration was seen to be pivotal, from the raw materials of iron ore and coal on one end of the supply chain to the myriad of finished products on the other. By the end of the twentieth century, however, things had dramatically changed.
Take a look inside for a brilliant and concise history of the steel industry. The author presents a comprehensive account of the economics of the industry, with an overview of how the industry operates and the environment in which it operates. This book includes a detailed discussion of the regulation of the industry; a documentation of the reasons why a rejuvenated steel industry will be critical to the economic health of the modern economy; and a rationale for the reemergence of the steel industry in particular, and manufacturing in general, as a vital force in the North American economy of the new millennium.
It is widely perceived that the United States is moving from an industrial age into an information age, driven by high technology. That image for steel is now being reversed. The steel industry has continuously been forced to remake itself, and this book describes those developments and dynamics. Information technology is pervasive across the industry and ecological improvement is steel intensive.
The book outlines a practical approach to shopper marketing in order to grow both revenue and brand equity. A story runs through the book in the first part of each chapter, so that it is easier to connect the theory and tools in the second part of each chapter, with a real-world scenario.
The book follows the story of the Big Beverage Company, who receive a call from their biggest customer one afternoon asking for their help in getting the coffee category growing again.
This sets the Big Beverage Company and their management team on a journey from being a brand-focused business, to one that understands how a broader emphasis on the category and its shoppers can lead to greater growth for themselves and their retail partners.
The book contains over 300 industry and academic references as well as numerous examples from the author’s own experience.