Nonfiction Books

How to speed up business processes, improve quality, and cut costs in any industry

In factories around the world, Toyota consistently makes the highest-quality cars with the fewest defects of any competing manufacturer, while using fewer man-hours, less on-hand inventory, and half the floor space of its competitors. The Toyota Way is the first book for a general audience that explains the management principles and business philosophy behind Toyota's worldwide reputation for quality and reliability.

Complete with profiles of organizations that have successfully adopted Toyota's principles, this book shows managers in every industry how to improve business processes by:<ul><li>Eliminating wasted time and resources

The book begins with a review of the principles of the Toyota Way through the 4Ps model—Philosophy, Processes, People and Partners, and Problem Solving. Readers looking to learn from Toyota’s lean systems will be provided with the inside knowledge they need to: • Define the companies purpose and develop a long-term philosophy • Create value streams with connected flow, standardized work, and level production • Build a culture to stop and fix problems • Develop leaders who promote and support the system • Find and develop exceptional people and partners • Learn the meaning of true root cause problem solving • Lead the change process and transform the total enterprise

The depth of detail provided draws on the authors combined experience of coaching and supporting companies in lean transformation. Toyota experts at the Georgetown, Kentucky plant, formally trained David Meier in TPS. Combined with Jeff Liker’s extensive study of Toyota and his insightful knowledge the authors have developed unique models and ideas to explain the true philosophies and principles of the Toyota Production System.

Now reissued with a new Foreword and Afterword, Machine contrasts two fundamentally different business systems -- lean versus mass, two very different ways of thinking about how humans work together to create value. Based on the largest and most thorough study ever undertaken of any industry -- MIT's five-year, fourteen-country International Motor Vehicle Program -- this book describes the entire managerial system of lean production.

Nearly twenty years ago, Womack, Jones, and Roos provided a comprehensive description of the entire lean system. They exhaustively documented its advantages over the mass production model pioneered by General Motors and predicted that lean production would eventually triumph. Indeed, they argued that it would triumph not just in manufacturing but in every value-creating activity from health care to retail to distribution.<P>Today The Machine That Changed the World provides enduring and essential guidance to managers and leaders in every industry seeking to transform traditional enterprises into exemplars of lean success.

In Understanding A3 Thinking, the authors first show that the A3 report is an effective tool when it is implemented in conjunction with a PDCA-based management philosophy. Toyota views A3 Reports as just one piece in their PDCA management approach. Second, the authors show that the process leading to the development and management of A3 reports is at least as important as the reports themselves, because of the deep learning and professional development that occurs in the process. And finally, the authors provide a number of examples as well as some very practical advice on how to write and review A3 reports.

How to Weld starts with a brief history of welding, an overview of the different types of welding, and a thorough discussion of safety practices. Longtime welding instructor Todd Bridigum describes various tools and types of metals, as well as techniques and types of joints. Bridigum discusses gas, stick, wire-feed (MIG and TIG), even brazing, completing each section with a series of exercises that fully illustrate the skills he has covered.