Eliminating Waste in Business

Eliminating Waste in Business
Author: Linda M. Orr
Publisher: Apress
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2014-04-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1430260890

Redundant employees. Storerooms full of extra stock "in case we need it." Marketing money sprayed in all directions in the vain hope it will create customers. Duplicate IT systems. HR policies that fatten the corporate waistline rather than keeping it trim. Budgeting exercises that result in "more of the same, plus 2%." Nearly every corner of most established businesses harbors waste—wasted money, time, effort, or all three. As any runner can tell you, a lean body runs faster and wins races. The same goes when it comes to the competitive race all businesses engage in. Lean companies innovate faster, market more effectively, operate more smoothly, and achieve greater profitability. Eliminating Waste in Business: Run Lean, Boost Profitability highlights common ways that businesses across all industries waste money without realizing it. Taking an analytical, hands-on view, this book challenges universally accepted business practices—some even taught in business schools—by pointing out how these practices drive waste, and then showing how to eliminate it and reap the benefits. In eight meaty chapters, operations expert Dave J. Orr, and sales and marketing authority Linda M. Orr, tackle some of the obvious and easy-to-get-rid-of organizational fat and time wasters (meetings, anyone?) that for whatever reason many managers are blind to. They'll also show you how to employ lean six sigma and other methods to improve operational processes, inventory management, and more. But this book goes beyond these things and covers such areas as marketing and advertising spending, headcount and personnel administration, finance, and the many categories that make up what is in many companies a bloated monster: overhead. With an emphasis on employing technology and smart management to drive down costs, this book will take a comprehensive view of the broad spectrum of money and time wasters and show you how to get rid of them once and for all.

Lean Thinking

Lean Thinking
Author: James P. Womack
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2013-09-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1471111008

Lean Thinking was launched in the fall of 1996, just in time for the recession of 1997. It told the story of how American, European, and Japanese firms applied a simple set of principles called 'lean thinking' to survive the recession of 1991 and grow steadily in sales and profits through 1996. Even though the recession of 1997 never happened, companies were starving for information on how to make themselves leaner and more efficient. Now we are dealing with the recession of 2001 and the financial meltdown of 2002. So what happened to the exemplar firms profiled in Lean Thinking? In the new fully revised edition of this bestselling book those pioneering lean thinkers are brought up to date. Authors James Womack and Daniel Jones offer new guidelines for lean thinking firms and bring their groundbreaking practices to a brand new generation of companies that are looking to stay one step ahead of the competition.

Sustainable Business: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications

Sustainable Business: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications
Author: Management Association, Information Resources
Publisher: IGI Global
Total Pages: 1998
Release: 2019-08-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 152259616X

In the increasingly competitive corporate sector, businesses must examine their current practices to ensure business success. By examining their social, financial, and environmental risks, obligations, and opportunities, businesses can re-design their operations more effectively to ensure prosperity. Sustainable Business: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a vital reference source that explores the best practices that promote business sustainability, including examining how economic, social, and environmental aspects are related to each other in the company’s management and performance. Highlighting a range of topics such as lean manufacturing, sustainable business model innovation, and ethical consumerism, this multi-volume book is ideally designed for entrepreneurs, business executives, business professionals, managers, and academics seeking current research on sustainable business practices.

7 Rules for Positive, Productive Change

7 Rules for Positive, Productive Change
Author: Esther Derby
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2019-08-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1523085819

Change is difficult but essential—Esther Derby offers seven guidelines for change by attraction, an approach that draws people into the process so that instead of resisting change, they embrace it. Even if you don't have change management in your job description, your job involves change. Change is a given as modern organizations respond to market and technology advances, make improvements, and evolve practices to meet new challenges. This is not a simple process on any level. Often, there is no indisputable right answer, and responding requires trial and error, learning and unlearning. Whatever you choose to do, it will interact with existing policies and structures in unpredictable ways. And there is, quite simply, a natural human resistance to being told to change. Rather than creating more rigorous preconceived plans or imposing change by decree, agile software developer turned organizational change expert Esther Derby offers change by attraction, an approach that is adaptive and responsive and engages people in learning, evolving, and owning the new way. She presents a set of seven heuristics—guides to problem-solving—that empower people to achieve outcomes within broad constraints using their personal ingenuity and creativity. When you work by attraction, you give space and support for people to feel the loss that comes with change and help them see what is valuable about the future you propose. Resistance fades because people feel there is nothing to push against—only something they want to move toward. Derby's approach clears the fog to provide a new way forward that honors people and creates safety for change.

Lean Waste Stream

Lean Waste Stream
Author: Marc Jensen
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2017-07-27
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1482253194

The fact that a process produces garbage is a testament to design inefficiency, and this book explains how to use the nature of that garbage to pinpoint and eliminate those inefficiencies. Lean Waste Stream: Reducing Material Use and Garbage Using Lean Principles supplies an unprecedented look at how to address business waste in a manner that will

Revolution in a Bottle

Revolution in a Bottle
Author: Tom Szaky
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 212
Release: 2009
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781591842507

While a freshman at Princeton, Tom Szaky co-founded a company that recycles garbage into worm poop, liquifies it, then packages it in used soda bottles, creating TerraCycle Plant Food. Five years later, this all-natural, highly effective fertiliser is available in more than 3000 locations. Not just a thrilling entrepreneurial success story, Szaky argues for a new approach to business, in which every business should aspire to be good for people, the environment and profits. He shows how the first two goals can help the third. This book is printed on 100% recycled paper.

Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering

Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering
Author: Caitlin Sadowski
Publisher: Apress
Total Pages: 275
Release: 2019-05-07
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1484242211

Get the most out of this foundational reference and improve the productivity of your software teams. This open access book collects the wisdom of the 2017 "Dagstuhl" seminar on productivity in software engineering, a meeting of community leaders, who came together with the goal of rethinking traditional definitions and measures of productivity. The results of their work, Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering, includes chapters covering definitions and core concepts related to productivity, guidelines for measuring productivity in specific contexts, best practices and pitfalls, and theories and open questions on productivity. You'll benefit from the many short chapters, each offering a focused discussion on one aspect of productivity in software engineering. Readers in many fields and industries will benefit from their collected work. Developers wanting to improve their personal productivity, will learn effective strategies for overcoming common issues that interfere with progress. Organizations thinking about building internal programs for measuring productivity of programmers and teams will learn best practices from industry and researchers in measuring productivity. And researchers can leverage the conceptual frameworks and rich body of literature in the book to effectively pursue new research directions. What You'll LearnReview the definitions and dimensions of software productivity See how time management is having the opposite of the intended effect Develop valuable dashboards Understand the impact of sensors on productivity Avoid software development waste Work with human-centered methods to measure productivity Look at the intersection of neuroscience and productivity Manage interruptions and context-switching Who Book Is For Industry developers and those responsible for seminar-style courses that include a segment on software developer productivity. Chapters are written for a generalist audience, without excessive use of technical terminology.

5S for the Office

5S for the Office
Author: Thomas Fabrizio
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2006-07-21
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781563273186

Although office and administrative activities are usually 60 percent of the production costs in most manufacturing organizations, these areas often get excluded during lean initiatives. To achieve lean, office activities must fully support shop floor manufacturing operations to eliminate waste. The adoption of 5S throughout all office and administrative functions is the first step to increase efficiency. In 5S for the Office: Organizing the Workplace to Eliminate Waste, Tom Fabrizio and Don Tapping bring the concepts of the 5S System -- effective tools for the elimination of waste on the shop floor -- into the office environment. The activities at the heart of 5S for the Office (organizing, ordering, cleaning, standardizing, and sustaining all of these) are completely logical. They are the basic rules for managing any effective workplace. However, it is the systematic method with which the 5S system approaches these activities that makes it unique. This book is a blueprint for building a Lean foundation for your office Readers of this book can immediately apply the concepts of 5S to their office and administrative activities, resulting in the elimination of waste, reduced production costs, and increased profits. To introduce the 5S system and sell its use to executives as well as workers, consider purchasing— 5S System: An Introduction DVD Catalog no. PP5934, Adhering to the principle of efficiency that defines this revolutionary and proven system, this video succinctly explains what is involved, who should participate, and what it will take to get started.

Lean Manufacturing that Works

Lean Manufacturing that Works
Author: Bill Carreira
Publisher: AMACOM/American Management Association
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2005
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780814428542

If your manufacturing organization is slow and inefficient, it's time to slim down. Here's a proven "weight loss" plan.

Machine that Changed the World

Machine that Changed the World
Author: James P. Womack
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 344
Release: 1990
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0892563508

Draws conclusions for the future of the industry in the USA.