Continuous Improvement

In order to face a new market reality, Operational Excellence initiatives will build the cornerstones of future operations strategies in the pharmaceutical sector. The biggest challenge is and will be the engagement of people. The authors of this book point out that it will be the ability to make each employee think in terms of continuous improvement and change that will enable companies to overcome the organizations internal inertia and separate the winners from the losers. Leading managers, consultants and researchers from both sides of the Atlantic contributed to this second book about a topic that has already started to change the way thousands of employees understand and do their jobs. As an addition to the first book Operational Excellence in the Pharmaceutical Industry which focused on the essence of OPEX, this book focuses on the managerial and organizational aspects of comprehensive Operational Excellence programs.

Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched.

Building upon the international bestselling Toyota Way series of books by Jeffrey Liker, The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement looks critically at lean deployments and identifies the root causes of why most of them fail. The book is organized into three major sections outlining:

1) Why it is critical to go beyond implementing lean tools and, instead, build a culture of continuous improvement that connects operational excellence to business strategy
2) Case studies from seven unique industries written from the perspective of the sensei (teacher) who led the lean transformation
3) Lessons about transforming your own vision of an ideal organization into reality

The Definitive Work on Six Sigma―Revised and Fully Updated

The Daily Pursuit of Excellence is one of the best leadership books to help you maximize your personal effectiveness, influence people, improve organizational efficiency, and develop a culture of excellence in your company. The learnings from 50 years of experience are summarized in the 4 key principles for achieving superior performance-leadership, people, systems, and culture.

The principles enable rapid transformation in any organization. Through personal stories and experiences, a proven roadmap is provided for demonstrating strong leadership to create a culture of excellence that matches the expectations of the organization. In today's competitive environment, individuals and organizations must be best-in-class to compete and win.

Smolik's book describes a practical way to be a results-focused leader and drive improvement in safety, reliability, quality, and the customer experience.

The book summarizes best practices in a manner that readers can easily understand and implement. A clear roadmap is provided for how to design, utilize, and maintain a good management system and to create a strong culture that provides consistency in performance and productivity. Simplicity is a prevailing theme throughout the book.

In Leading Lean by Living Lean, Philip Holt details and explains what is probably the most important part of becoming a Lean Leader -- living and practicing what you preach. To do this you must believe in what you’re doing, understand what it means and what you need to do, and do it every day. The author, through his engineering background, has fully embraced the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) model of Deming / Shewhart but has adapted David Bovis’ Believe-Think-Feel-Act (BTFA) model to understand why logic and facts are very often not the principal players in the game of change.

In this book, Holt author describes how you can take both the PDCA and BTFA models into account and has sectioned the book into three prime parts:

1. Head -- How you learn and understand the Lean principles and their application.
2. Hands -- How you practice Lean Leadership daily.
3. Heart -- How you internalize and believe in Lean Leadership.

Through this book, you, the Lean practitioner, whether aspiring or experienced, will have everything that you need to “lead it,” “do it,” and “live it.”

The nature of this book is more “why to” than “how to” – the author knows that he cannot tell you how to lead, do, or live Lean; he can only explain why it is so important and share his knowledge, experiences, failures, and successes. This book isn’t so much a self-help book as a self-reflection book and it can point you in the proper direction, but… the book won’t change you; only you can change you!

Essentially, with this book, the author wants those who think of Lean as a toolkit, who believe that Lean can be project managed, or who argue about Lean versus Six Sigma and misunderstand the fundamental depth of impact that true Lean Leadership has on an organization to be disabused of any or all of those notions. This book is aimed at those leaders who seek to experience the full transformative effects of Lean in their organizations and want to practice it at the principle level of deployment. Holt's aim is to help business leaders enhance who they are by changing what they do and the way that they do it