Here's the table of contents, addressing everything you'll need to understand, explain, teach, and apply the time-tested methods of business improvement. Whether you need to establish a common mindset, identify problems or their root causes, prioritize projects, perform financial analysis, or motivate the team, it's all here!

Overview of Topics 2

Organization of Topics 3

Create an Operating Vision 4

• About the Vision Tool 4
• Business Effectiveness Attributes 5
  
  
  • Business Model 6
  • Systems for Management 7
  • Operating Processes 9
    
• Maturity Survey 11
• Business Effectiveness Results 13
• Demographics 14
• What Does This Vision Look Like? 15
• Hoshin Planning 16
• Closing the Gaps 18
• Road Map 19
• Case Study - IBM 360 20
• Case Study - IBM Personal Computer 21
• Vision: Closing Comments 22

Lean toward Lean 23

• Lean Operations 23
• Why Lean is Important 24
• Resistance to Lean 24
• Lean Tools and Concepts 25
• Lean Accounting 26
• Types of Waste 27
• Pull Philosophy 28
• One by One Production 29
• Chaku-Chaku 30
• Constraint Management 31
• Throughput 33
• Yield 34
• Focus on Reality 35
• Value Stream Maps 36
• Line Balancing 38
• Standardized Work 39
• Visual Workplace 40
• 5S Principles 41
• 5S Audit Checklist 42
• Poka-Yoke 43
• Kanbans 44
• Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) 45
• Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED) 46
• Spaghetti Diagram 47
• Ishikawa Diagram 48
• Daily Focus on Lean 49
• Agile Development 51

Achieve Quality with Six Sigma 53

• Introduction 53
• Total Quality Management (TQM) 54
• ISO 9000 55
• Baldrige Award 56
• Normal Distribution (Bell Curve) 57
• Histograms 58
• Statistical Process Control (SPC) 59
• XbarR Charts 60
• Design of experiments (DOE) 62
• Taguchi (DOE) 9 Sources 63
• Shainin (DOE) 10 63
• Quality Function Deployment (QFD) 64
• QFD House of Quality 65

Apply the Tools to Get It Done 67

• Process Flow Analysis 67
• Day In the Life Of (DILO) Studies 68
• Ratio Delay Analysis 69
• Ishikawa Diagram 70
• Brainstorming 71
• Affinity Diagrams 72
• Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) 73
• Pareto Analysis 74
• Multivoting 75
• Force Field Analysis 75
• Generic Improvement Steps 77
• DMAIC 79
• DFSS (DMADV) 80
• SIPOC 81
• Case Study: Better Mouse Trap Division 82
• Case Suggestions: Saving Your New Job 83

Get It Done Fast with Kaizen 85

• About Kaizen Events 85 >
• The Key Steps 86
• Event Checklist 87
• Planning Form 88
• Event Agenda 89
• Documentation 90
• Executive Presentation 91
• Roles & Responsibilities 92
• Rules of the Road 93
• Critical Success Factors 94
• Mistakes Teams Make 95

Map It and Understand It 97

• About Process Mapping 97
• Creating a Process Map 99
• Identifying Key Issues 101
• What it Means 102
• Linking Findings to Actions 103
• Future State 104
• Process Map Templates 105
  
  
  • Instruction Sheet 105
  • Sign In Sheet 105
  • Process Step Template 105
  • Process Decision Template 106 >
  • Cloud Template 106 >
  • Flag Templates 106
  
  

Be Financially Literate 107

• Personal Financial Statements 107
• P&L Concepts 107
• Balance Sheet Concepts 108
• Cash Flow Concepts 108
• Chart of Accounts 109
• General & Sub-Ledgers 109
• Profit & Loss (Income) Statement 110
• Balance Sheet 110
• Cash Flow or Funds Flow 112

Put Finance to Work 113

• Key Ratios 113
• Liquidity Ratios 113
• Activity Ratios 114
• Leverage/Solvency Ratios 114
• Profitability Ratios 115
• Market Value Ratios 115
• Productivity Ratios 115
• Return on Invested Capital 116
• Payback Chart 117
• Net Present Value (NPV) 118
• Internal Rate of Return (IRR) 119
• Breakeven Chart 120
• Insourcing and Outsourcing 121
• Price Sensitivity 122
• Shareholder Value 123
• Executive Highlights 124
• Activity Based Costing (ABC) 125
• What ABC Tells Us 127

Make the Business Case for Change 129

• About the Business Case 129
• Benefits Case 130
• Cost Considerations 130
• The Base Case 131
• Opportunity Charts 132
• Business Case Presentation 133
• Business Case Variables 134

Make Them Care with Metrics 135

• What Metrics is All About 135
• Strategic Metrics 136
• Hierarchy of Metrics 137
• Sample Hierarchy of Metrics 138
• Lean versus Traditional Metrics 139
• Process versus Result Metrics 141
• Customer Metrics 142
• Financial Metrics 143
• Employee Metrics 144
• Production Metrics 145
• Benchmarking 146

Stop Boiling the Ocean 149

• About the Initiatives Review 149
• How to Perform the Review 150
• Initiative Review Summary Form 151
• Detailed Interview Form 152

Make Up Your Mind 154

• Decision Tools 154
• Decision Trees 155
• Interpreting a Decision Tree 157
• Linear Programming 158
• Interpreting an LP Chart 160
• Complex Problems 160

Just Enough Math 162

• About Math Tools for Business 162
• Acceptable Quality Level (AQL) 163
• Operating Characteristic Curve 165
• Queuing Analysis 166
• Regression Analysis 167
• Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) 168

Get Some Really Big Brains 169

• Ubiquitous Systems 169
• Material / Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) 170
• Supply Chain Software and CPFR 171
• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems 172

Get the Team on Board 176

• About Change Management 176
• 'Low-Hanging Fruit' or 'Quick Wins' and 'Silver Bullets' 176
• Team Building Considerations 177
• Project 'Due Diligence' Questions 178
• The Emotional Cycle of Change 179
• Critical Success Factors 180
• Executive Oversight 181
• Business Case for Action 181
• Project Charters 183
• Company Alignment Results 184
• Are They Ready for Change? 185
• Change Readiness Index 186
• Case Discussion: Geezer Gear Clothiers 187
• Geezer Gear Clothiers: Suggested Approach 188

Do It Now! 189

Suggested Syllabus 189

Index 192

Sources 194

Further Reading 195

Continuous Improvement Glossary 196


The Excel Tools


• Survey Instruments: What are they thinking?
• 5S Audit: What kind of mess have they made?
• Prioritizing Tools: What should we work on first?
• Operations Analyses: What's broken?
• Kaizen Events: Let's make quick work of it!
• Process Map: Should we be doing it this way?
• Opportunity ID: What's it worth to fix it?
• Throughput - Yield: Does it help to make more?
• In-Out Sourcing: Should we make this ourselves?
• Business Case: Can we get our investment back?
• Breakeven Model: How many must we sell?
• Price Sensitivity: What's price should we offer?
• Personal Finance: How can I get control of my own finances?
• Startup Financials: We need a quick financial projection.