Alfred Chandler argues that only with consistent attention to research and development and an emphasis on long-term corporate strategies could firms remain successful over time. He details these processes for nearly every major chemical and pharmaceutical firm, demonstrating why some companies forged ahead while others failed.

By the end of World War II, the chemical and pharmaceutical industries were transformed by...

Cloth was one of the most important commodities in the early modern world, and colonial North Americans had to develop creative strategies to acquire it. Although early European settlers came from societies in which hand textile production was central to the economy, local conditions in North America interacted with traditional craft structures to create new patterns of production and consumption. The Weaver's Craft examines the development of cloth manufacture in early Pennsylvania from its roots in seventeenth-century Europe to the beginning of industrialization.

Adrienne...

Notably flexible and brief, the A3 report has proven to be a key tool In Toyota's successful move toward organizational efficiency, effectiveness, and improvement, especially within its engineering and R&D organizations. The power of the A3 report, however, derives not from the report itself, but rather from the development of the culture and mindset required for the implementation of the A3 system.

In Understanding A3 Thinking, the authors first show that the A3 report is an effective tool...

Learn to implement and cultivate a culture of improvement with the assistance of one of the world's most respected experts

Managing a business so that it achieves a supreme pace of improvement requires that all members of an organization can and do make their best contributions to the success of the enterprise. Management must provide employees with a shared set of values and beliefs so that they can decide for themselves how to behave in accordance with the expectations of a nurturing and empowering culture.

A Culture of Rapid...

Written by business leaders for business leaders, this book explores successful supply chain improvement requirements and methodologies. It covers the use of these techniques in a story about Twin City Manufacturing, a fictitious company based on the authors' actual experiences. Whether you are intimately familiar with the supply chain discipline or have limited experience, the authors present a valuable roadmap that can be applied to supply chain improvement. Drawing on their combined 70 years of experience, the authors will arm you with the knowledge and methods needed to identify and...

Hidden opportunities to improve profits in the healthcare industry abound in the area of discharge planning. The Discharge Planning Handbook for Healthcare: Top Ten Secrets to Unlocking a New Revenue Pipeline provides innovative new solutions that will show hospital administrators how to turn one of the most antiquated aspects of healthcare into one of the most productive. The performance-improvement concepts and approaches discussed in this volume balance all aspects of existing business models and provide a new approach to managing the discharge planning process.

Dependable information flow is a necessary prerequisite to the successful implementation of lean production principles. But while most managers understand how to make materials and manpower flow, the flow of information tends to be much more underdeveloped. Even companies that excel at recognizing waste and are otherwise adept at implementing the principles of lean production are often challenged to provide satisfactory information flow.

Lean Connections: Making Information Flow Efficiently and Effectively isdesigned to help you rethink the way your organization views...

A successful, sustainable lean initiative requires more than just mapping your value stream and making a few improvements. It requires a process to manage the entire lean transformation. This new video series will teach you an exciting eight-step method for creating and applying a systematic process for the implementation of lean manufacturing. You will actually be able to train lean teams in the process and begin using it immediately. Plus, you will see how leading American manufacturing facilities have accomplished their lean...