From the award-winning developers of Factory Physics—a powerful leadership guide for breakthrough performance A comprehensive guide that cuts through the hodgepodge of copycat initiatives, overblown buzzwords, confusing mathematics, and misguided software, Factory Physics for Managers is a breath of fresh air for operations managers and executives. Written by the leaders and experts behind the bestselling Factory Physics, it’s a brilliant crash course in the practical science of operations designed to help you: Achieve best possible profit, cash flow, and customer service Attain highest return with existing Lean, Six Sigma, and ERP initiatives Manage your capacity, inventory, response time, and variability with high predictability Simplify management of complexity using existing IT systems Use the fundamentals of science to ensure your operation’s success See your company and procedures more clearly Improve intuition, decision making, and strategy execution A strategy of imitation is not much of a strategy. Most every company uses the common continuous improvement initiatives. This highly accessible guide addresses but goes beyond other business approaches such as Lean, Six Sigma, and Theory of Constraints by offering a customizable plan that you can apply to any manufacturing-based industry or supply chain. You’ll discover invaluable tools for developing operations strategy and driving execution by using practical science to assess your procedures, target problems, and find solutions. You’ll learn essential life lessons from the best—and worst—practices of corporate leaders like Toyota and Boeing. You’ll find ingenious new ways to improve your leadership by predictively managing the tradeoffs that every operation faces—whether it’s more or less inventory or capacity, higher or lower customer service, or more or fewer products. Using this approach, you can tackle these natural conflicts in business through a practical, comprehensive science of operations. Factory Physics for Managers makes it easier to choose and execute the best strategy for better productivity—and even bigger profits. Praise for Factory Physics for Managers “Factory Physics for Managers is a proven path to flawless execution and results. Leading vs. following in our industry is predicated on the relentless pursuit of putting order to chaos. Factory Physics science and CSUITE software have given our organization the ability to plan, predict, model, and execute based on explosive growth and rapid-fire, dynamic changes to our business model. In our case, history is not a good predictor of the future, so we need to deploy our resources wisely, and the Factory Physics approach has helped us do just that.” —Larry Doerr, COO, Stratasys “Shows how the science behind Lean initiatives can greatly improve results in terms of productivity and resources.” —Bill Fierle, Vice President and General Manager, TopWorx, Emerson “Brings powerful, accessible science to operations management. The Factory Physics playbook enables me to lead the harnessing of our data more effectively for modeling, planning, control, and feedback. Armed with the concepts, common language, and tools in this book, I can partner with operations’ leadership to impact the bottom line.” —Jeffrey Korman, CIO, Hu-Friedy Mfg LLC, Chicago

From the award-winning developers of Factory Physics--a powerful leadership guide for breakthrough performance A comprehensive guide that cuts through the hodgepodge of copycat initiatives, overblown buzzwords, confusing mathematics, and misguided software, Factory Physics for Managers is a breath of fresh air for operations managers and executives. Written by the leaders and experts behind the bestselling Factory Physics, it's a brilliant crash course in the practical science of operations designed to help you: Achieve best possible profit, cash flow, and customer service Attain highest return with existing Lean, Six Sigma, and ERP initiatives Manage your capacity, inventory, response time, and variability with high predictability Simplify management of complexity using existing IT systems Use the fundamentals of science to ensure your operation's success See your company and procedures more clearly Improve intuition, decision making, and strategy execution A strategy of imitation is not much of a strategy. Most every company uses the common continuous improvement initiatives. This highly accessible guide addresses but goes beyond other business approaches such as Lean, Six Sigma, and Theory of Constraints by offering a customizable plan that you can apply to any manufacturing-based industry or supply chain. You'll discover invaluable tools for developing operations strategy and driving execution by using practical science to assess your procedures, target problems, and find solutions. You'll learn essential life lessons from the best--and worst--practices of corporate leaders like Toyota and Boeing. You'll find ingenious new ways to improve your leadership by predictively managing the tradeoffs that every operation faces--whether it's more or less inventory or capacity, higher or lower customer service, or more or fewer products. Using this approach, you can tackle these natural conflicts in business through a practical, comprehensive science of operations. Factory Physics for Managers makes it easier to choose and execute the best strategy for better productivity--and even bigger profits. Praise for Factory Physics for Managers "Factory Physics for Managers is a proven path to flawless execution and results. Leading vs. following in our industry is predicated on the relentless pursuit of putting order to chaos. Factory Physics science and CSUITE software have given our organization the ability to plan, predict, model, and execute based on explosive growth and rapid-fire, dynamic changes to our business model. In our case, history is not a good predictor of the future, so we need to deploy our resources wisely, and the Factory Physics approach has helped us do just that." --Larry Doerr, COO, Stratasys "Shows how the science behind Lean initiatives can greatly improve results in terms of productivity and resources." --Bill Fierle, Vice President and General Manager, TopWorx, Emerson "Brings powerful, accessible science to operations management. The Factory Physics playbook enables me to lead the harnessing of our data more effectively for modeling, planning, control, and feedback. Armed with the concepts, common language, and tools in this book, I can partner with operations' leadership to impact the bottom line." --Jeffrey Korman, CIO, Hu-Friedy Mfg LLC, Chicago

Publisher Description

Our economy and future way of life depend on how well American manufacturing managers adapt to the dynamic, globally competitive landscape and evolve their firms to keep pace. A major challenge is how to structure the firms environment so that it attains the speed and low cost of high-volume flow lines while retaining the flexibility and customization potential of a low-volume job shop. The books three parts are organized according to three categories of skills required by managers and engineers: basics, intuition, and synthesis. Part I reviews traditional operations management techniques and identifies the necessary components of the science of manufacturing. Part II presents the core concepts of the book, beginning with the structure of the science of manufacturing and a discussion of the systems approach to problem solving. Other topics include behavioral tendencies of manufacturing plants, push and pull production systems, the human element in operations management, and the relationship between quality and operations. Chapter conclusions include main points and observations framed as manufacturing laws. In Part III, the lessons of Part I and the laws of Part II are applied to address specific manufacturing management issues in detail. The authors compare and contrast common problems, including shop floor control, long-range aggregate planning, workforce planning and capacity management. A main focus in Part III is to help readers visualize how general concepts in Part II can be applied to specific problems. Written for both engineering and management students, the authors demonstrate the effectiveness of a rule-based and data driven approach to operations planning and control. They advance an organized framework from which to evaluate management practices and develop useful intuition about manufacturing systems.

Managers face an infinite range of situations and problems that involve bringing materials and information together to produce and deliver goods and services to customers. In Hopps solid, practical introduction to manufacturing and supply chain dynamics, managers learn how to use the scientific approachto understand why systems behave the way they doas an effective way to deal with almost any scenario they may face. Written in a reader-friendly style, the text includes useful examples from manufacturers as well as service providers, presents the key concepts that underlie the behavior of operations systems in a largely non-mathematical way, contains illustrations and analogies to everyday life, links theory to practice, and reinforces the learning process with end-of-chapter Questions for Thought.

Manufacturing Planning and Control Systems for Supply Chain Management is both the classic field handbook for manufacturing professionals in virtually any industry and the standard preparatory text for APICS certification courses. This essential reference has been totally revised and updated to give professionals the knowledge they need.

The cornerstone text onquality management and performance excellence – thoroughly revised to reflectthe latest challenges and developments The “body of knowledge” for the science ofquality management and performance excellence for more than half-a-century, Juran’s Quality Handbook has been completely updated to meetthe ever-changing needs of today’s business and quality professionals. Underthe guidance of a team of top experts, this authoritative resource demonstrateshow to apply the right methods for delivering superior results and achievingexcellence in any organization, industry, or country. Juran’s Quality Handbook, Seventh Edition provides you with a complete roadmap forthe discipline -- clearly written to make sure you know where you are in theprocess and what you must do to reach the next level. Within its pages, youwill find A-Z coverage – from key concepts, methods, research, and tools topractical applications on the job. Here’s why this is the best edition yet: • Updated chapters on Lean, Six Sigma and the Shingo Prize • NEW chapters on Risk Management and Building a Quality Management System • NEW material on the history of quality management • All ISO and other regulatory standards have been updated • NEW statistical tables, charts, and data • Examples and case studies throughout demonstrate how others have appliedthe methods and tools discussed in real-world situations

This remarkable volume highlights the importance of Production and Operations Management (POM) as a field of study and research contributing to substantial business and social growth. The editors emphasize how POM works with a range of systems—agriculture, disaster management, e-commerce, healthcare, hospitality, military systems, not-for-profit, retail, sports, sustainability, telecommunications, and transport—and how it contributes to the growth of each. Martin K. Starr and Sushil K. Gupta gather an international team of experts to provide researchers and students with a panoramic vision of the field. Divided into eight parts, the book presents the history of POM, and establishes the foundation upon which POM has been built while also revisiting and revitalizing topics that have long been essential. It examines the significance of processes and projects to the fundamental growth of the POM field. Critical emerging themes and new research are examined with open minds and this is followed by opportunities to interface with other business functions. Finally, the next era is discussed in ways that combine practical skill with philosophy in its analysis of POM, including traditional and nontraditional applications, before concluding with the editors’ thoughts on the future of the discipline. Students of POM will find this a comprehensive, definitive resource on the state of the discipline and its future directions.