About the Book

Employees hate to work their best - for a reason. Some 150 years ago, employees become aware that their labour is their property. They feel entitled to the profit on this property. Once the employer takes away this profit, employees feels exploited. Hence, adversarial relationship toward employers. An employer will regain his employees' full cooperation when he switches from employment to the entrepreneurial mode of labour utilization. This change will render the workplace more productive and efficient because workers will join forces among themselves and with the employer for profit maximization. The employer will be making profit exclusively on his means of production (work premises and utilities, machinery and raw materials). However, that "limitation" will increase his profit because workers will maximize it when the profit on their labour will come to them at the same rate.

The first enterprise that switches to the new mode will become the strongest competitor in its industry. Others will either follow suit or close doors.

Private employment started in the eighteenth century and brought massive progress to societies that embraced it. Human productivity soared to unheard of levels, along with living standards. The industrial revolution came about. Culture produced works of quality unsurpassed until this day.

The rise continued for some 200 years and then started to slow down. These days, human productivity is declining. Technological improvements yield only minor increases in general productivity, while raising unemployment. We are witnessing degradation in culture. While a few are gaining wealth bordering on fantasy, the general wealth is stagnating. Unions have lost their ability to advance wages without causing jobs to move overseas.

The entrepreneurial mode will resume the rise of human productivity. It will create jobs. Capital and labour will cooperate to maximize profits. General wealth will resume its rise and so will the culture.

In today's fast-paced and volatile business environment, where customers are demanding increased flexibility and lower cost, companies must operate in a waste-free environment to maintain a competitive edge and grow margins. Lean Enterprise is the process that companies are now adopting to provide superior customer service and improve bottom line performance.

Are you contemplating Lean Enterprise for your manufacturing or office facility? Are you already implementing Lean, but dissatisfied with the speed of change? Do your employees think that Lean is just the new flavor of the month? Are you being forced to go Lean by your customers, or your competitors? Are you anticipating going offshore to cut costs?

Irrespective of your situation, this book is for you. The Elusive Lean Enterprise is designed to help guide you through the Lean transformation and avoid the pitfalls. Find out why many companies are failing to live up to the promise of Lean, and why there are alternatives to outsourcing or going offshore.

In The Elusive Lean Enterprise, lean experts Keith Gilpatrick and Brian Furlong show you what to do, what you must not do, and how to make Lean the way business is done in the 21st century.

Learn from the mistakes of others and avoid the trial and error implementation process that often kills the initiative. Find out why you must change, how to change, and how to institutionalize the process. Understand the costs of outsourcing or going offshore and compare these to the Lean alternative.

For companies that invest the time and have an effective strategy, Lean Enterprise can produce outstanding results. For those companies that fail to commit to the process and truly change the culture, a Lean Enterprise will truly remain elusive.

Root Cause Analysis in Process-based Industries Root Cause Analysis is something that is not yet taught in schools, colleges or in universities. There is a tendency to rely on intuition and the experience of engineers and team leaders when running problem solving tasks. In process-based industries, a delay in identifying the real cause for a process problem means a loss of production material and revenue, and sometimes even diminished company reputation or market share. The intuitive way of problem solving is by a trial and error approach. An inexperienced team, using this approach will first try their best guess followed by the next best guess and so on. This can be very frustrating and time consuming, as the team may work very hard only to have to start all over again. Sometimes, by being experienced and knowledgeable, we lose the ability to be unbiased. It is not infrequent for teams with knowledgeable and experienced persons to “lock” on a model, while relying on partial indications. From this point, the team tends to overemphasize data that is in agreement with their theory and dismiss all other data. This book provides understanding and knowledge about Root Cause Analysis to those who need to face process and equipment problems in process-based industries. However, anyone who deals with Root Cause Analysis in any discipline may find parts of this book useful and worth reading.

About the Book

Employees hate to work their best - for a reason. Some 150 years ago, employees become aware that their labour is their property. They feel entitled to the profit on this property. Once the employer takes away this profit, employees feels exploited. Hence, adversarial relationship toward employers. An employer will regain his employees' full cooperation when he switches from employment to the entrepreneurial mode of labour utilization. This change will render the workplace more productive and efficient because workers will join forces among themselves and with the employer for profit maximization. The employer will be making profit exclusively on his means of production (work premises and utilities, machinery and raw materials). However, that "limitation" will increase his profit because workers will maximize it when the profit on their labour will come to them at the same rate.

The first enterprise that switches to the new mode will become the strongest competitor in its industry. Others will either follow suit or close doors.

Private employment started in the eighteenth century and brought massive progress to societies that embraced it. Human productivity soared to unheard of levels, along with living standards. The industrial revolution came about. Culture produced works of quality unsurpassed until this day.

The rise continued for some 200 years and then started to slow down. These days, human productivity is declining. Technological improvements yield only minor increases in general productivity, while raising unemployment. We are witnessing degradation in culture. While a few are gaining wealth bordering on fantasy, the general wealth is stagnating. Unions have lost their ability to advance wages without causing jobs to move overseas.

The entrepreneurial mode will resume the rise of human productivity. It will create jobs. Capital and labour will cooperate to maximize profits. General wealth will resume its rise and so will the culture.

About the Book

Employees hate to work their best - for a reason. Some 150 years ago, employees become aware that their labour is their property. They feel entitled to the profit on this property. Once the employer takes away this profit, employees feels exploited. Hence, adversarial relationship toward employers. An employer will regain his employees' full cooperation when he switches from employment to the entrepreneurial mode of labour utilization. This change will render the workplace more productive and efficient because workers will join forces among themselves and with the employer for profit maximization. The employer will be making profit exclusively on his means of production (work premises and utilities, machinery and raw materials). However, that "limitation" will increase his profit because workers will maximize it when the profit on their labour will come to them at the same rate.

The first enterprise that switches to the new mode will become the strongest competitor in its industry. Others will either follow suit or close doors.

Private employment started in the eighteenth century and brought massive progress to societies that embraced it. Human productivity soared to unheard of levels, along with living standards. The industrial revolution came about. Culture produced works of quality unsurpassed until this day.

The rise continued for some 200 years and then started to slow down. These days, human productivity is declining. Technological improvements yield only minor increases in general productivity, while raising unemployment. We are witnessing degradation in culture. While a few are gaining wealth bordering on fantasy, the general wealth is stagnating. Unions have lost their ability to advance wages without causing jobs to move overseas.

The entrepreneurial mode will resume the rise of human productivity. It will create jobs. Capital and labour will cooperate to maximize profits. General wealth will resume its rise and so will the culture.

In today's fast-paced and volatile business environment, where customers are demanding increased flexibility and lower cost, companies must operate in a waste-free environment to maintain a competitive edge and grow margins. Lean Enterprise is the process that companies are now adopting to provide superior customer service and improve bottom line performance.

Are you contemplating Lean Enterprise for your manufacturing or office facility? Are you already implementing Lean, but dissatisfied with the speed of change? Do your employees think that Lean is just the new flavor of the month? Are you being forced to go Lean by your customers, or your competitors? Are you anticipating going offshore to cut costs?

Irrespective of your situation, this book is for you. The Elusive Lean Enterprise is designed to help guide you through the Lean transformation and avoid the pitfalls. Find out why many companies are failing to live up to the promise of Lean, and why there are alternatives to outsourcing or going offshore.

In The Elusive Lean Enterprise, lean experts Keith Gilpatrick and Brian Furlong show you what to do, what you must not do, and how to make Lean the way business is done in the 21st century.

Learn from the mistakes of others and avoid the trial and error implementation process that often kills the initiative. Find out why you must change, how to change, and how to institutionalize the process. Understand the costs of outsourcing or going offshore and compare these to the Lean alternative.

For companies that invest the time and have an effective strategy, Lean Enterprise can produce outstanding results. For those companies that fail to commit to the process and truly change the culture, a Lean Enterprise will truly remain elusive.

Essentials of Materials Management is an invaluable resource for personnel working in the materials department, and for those who need some knowledge of materials management and organization. Principles and practices of inventory control management, materials planning and schedule, production requirements planning, material requirements planning, capacity requirements planning, distribution requirements planning, supply chain management, transportation and assignment models are outlined and illustrated. In addition, the book provides a comprehensive and easy-to-read outline of the principles and pragmatic approaches in integrating and managing the materials functions. Examples are clearly provided to illustrate the principles of the text.