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Velocity: Combining Lean, Six Sigma and the Theory of Constraints to Achieve Breakthrough Performance - A Business Novel - Hardcover

Jacob, Dee; Bergland, Suzan; Cox, Jeff

 
9781439158920: Velocity: Combining Lean, Six Sigma and the Theory of Constraints to Achieve Breakthrough Performance - A Business Novel
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1439158924 ISBN 13: 9781439158920
Verlag: Free Press, 2009

Inhaltsangabe

Millions of readers remember The Goal, the landmark business novel that sets forth by way of story the essential principles of Eliyahu Goldratt's innovative methods of production. Now, from the AGI-Goldratt Institute and Jeff Cox, the same creative writer who co-authored The Goal, comes VELOCITY, the book that reveals how to achieve outstanding bottom-line results by integrating the world's three most powerful continuous improvement disciplines: Lean, Six Sigma, and Goldratt's Theory of Constraints.

Used by the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps to dramatically improve some of the most complex, logistically vast supply chains in the world, the VELOCITY APPROACH draws on the strengths of all three disciplines to deliver breakthrough performance gains. In physics, speed with direction is velocity; in business, the application of VELOCITY means your organization can achieve operational speed with strategic direction to outmaneuver competitors, gain loyalty with customers, and rapidly build sustainable earnings growth -- in as little as one or two business quarters.

Dee Jacob and Suzan Bergland, two princi-pals of AGI, have been teaching the concepts, techniques, and tools of VELOCITY to major corporations, including Procter & Gamble, ITT, and Northrop Grumman, for years. Now they unlock the door for you to see how to apply their insights and methods to your organization -- be it business, not-for-profit, manufacturing, or service based -- in order to shorten lead times, slash inventories, reduce production variability, and increase sales.

Writer Jeff Cox returns with the vivid, realistic style that made The Goal so readable yet so edifying. Thrust into the presidency of the subsidiary company where she has managed sales and marketing, Amy Cieolara is mandated by her corporate superiors to implement Lean Six Sigma (LSS) in order to appease a key customer. Assigned to help her is LSS Master Black Belt Wayne Reese, installed as her operations manager. But as time goes on and corporate pressure mounts, Amy finds she has to start thinking for herself -- and learning from everyone around her -- and she arrives at the series of steps that form the core of the VELOCITY APPROACH.

VELOCITY offers keen insight into the human and organizational factors that so often derail growth while teaching you proven, practical techniques for restarting and revving up the internal engines of your company to reach new levels of success. Colorful characters, believable situations, and everything from dice games to AGI's "reality tree" techniques make this business novel a vital resource for everyone seeking to deliver business improvement in these challenging economic times -- and far into the future.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dee Jacob is the president of AGI—Goldratt Institute, which is based in New Haven, CT. She is a key innovator in the development of the Theory of Constraints and of the velocity approach.  Jacob teaches at the AGI Jonah Program and Thinking Process courses. Before joining AGI, Jacob was a manager with Procter & Gamble where she integrated TOC and LSS techniques.

Suzan Bergland is a partner of AGI and president of its North American Group. She is an expert in the velocity approach integrating TOC and LSS. She is a founder and member of The Theory of Constraints International Certification Organization (TOCICO), and also holds membership to the Association for Operations Management and the American Society for Quality.

Jeff Cox is the co-author or author of seven works of business fiction, which include The Goal, Zapp, The Quadrant Solution, Heroz, The Venture, Selling the Wheel and The Cure. Both Zapp and The Goal ranked first and second, respectively, on a list of bestselling business books from the 1990s. Jeff and his family live near Pittsburgh, PA.

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1

The news spread by way of hushed murmurs in hallways, muffled conversations behind closed doors, mutterings over the tops of cubicle walls, quiet phone calls with hands covering the mouthpieces. However, one poor chump was stupid enough to broadcast it in an email – and he eventually got the blame and was canned, although he in fact had not been the one initially to leak the word. ‘In any case, within hours – and a good two days before the official announcement – practically everyone at the headquarters of Hi-T Composites knew what was only supposed to be known by certain boards of directors, key executives, and a few trusted subordinates.

Amy Cieolara, who was not one of those privileged few, had just got back to her office after her regular Wednesday meeting with her marketing and salespeople. She was a slim woman, age forty-one at the time, with sandy brown hair cut midlength that she wore either pulled back or in long, flowing curls framing her rather angular chin-line. This was a curls day, and she was having trouble keeping them out of her face as she walked briskly through the offices while thumbing a text message at the same time. Almost in lockstep behind her as she went into her office came Linda, her assistant, who closed Amy’s door and held it shut, leaning against it lest some intruder should come barging in and hear her speak of the appalling secret.

“Have you heard?” Linda asked.

“What? About Elaine and Bill? Well, everyone said it was never going to last, and guess what, it didn’t.”

“No!” said Linda in an exclamatory whisper. “We’re getting sold to some huge company!”

Amy’s green eyes sharpened their focus on the younger woman’s worried face.

“Well? Is it true?”

“Linda, if I knew, which I don’t, I wouldn’t be allowed to say anything to anybody. By the way, who told you?”

“Nobody. There’s an email floating around. I’ll forward it to you.”

“No!” said Amy. “I don’t want it on my computer. Print a copy for me.”

Linda slipped out the door, back to her desk. When she returned a few minutes later, sheet of paper in hand, Amy took the email printout and read it quickly, then blew a soft whistle from between her lips.

“Wow, is this guy in trouble,” Amy said under her breath. Then, to Linda: “Look, it’s probably just one of those rumors that gets started. Don’t get yourself in a tizzy.”

“But Bobby just got laid off and I’m five-and-a-half-months pregnant! What if we have to go through all that downsizing stuff again?”

“If it ever happens, it’s a long way off. All right? Anyway, Bobby is smart; he’ll find something else. You’ll both be fine – I mean, all three of you, you’ll be just fine. Now, I need you to make some travel reservations for me …”

With Linda calmed down and returning to her normal high-level competency, buzzing away at task after task and all but leaping tall buildings, even in her pregnant state, Amy whisked herself down the hall. Email printout in hand, she hurried into the corner office of Hi-T Composites Company President B. Donald Williams. She shut B. Don’s door behind her and leaned her slim frame against it, almost exactly as Linda had done.

“What’s up?” asked B. Don.

“Have you heard?”

He blinked his eyes as if feigning ignorance, then relented. “Well, yes, I have heard. I have to say, I am not shocked.”

“You’re not?”

“No, I’m not.”

Amy’s mouth dropped open.

“Anyone could have seen it coming,” he said.

“Well, I couldn’t.”

“Come on, Amy! Everyone knows Bill is a jerk – and Elaine, much as I appreciate her professionally, would just be impossible to live with.”

“No! Not them. This!”

She handed the sheet of paper across the desk to B. Don and sat down in one of his well-worn, sun-faded chairs. The business unit president put on his glasses and then scrutinized the words, his eyes widening as he read.

“Oh … ! Oh snap!” he said. “Where the snappin’ hell did this come from?”

“According to Linda – who had nothing to do with this – everyone knows. Or thinks they know. Anyway, everyone is talking about it. By the way, is it true?”

B. Don leaned back, removed his glasses, and gave them a toss, such that the glasses spun across the leather blotter on his desk. He then shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

“Can you tell me … or not?” Amy asked.

“You,” he said with emphasis, “cannot tell anyone.”

“But everyone knows.”

“But you cannot talk about it. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“To anyone. Understood?”

“Well, sure. But according to Linda, it’s all over the place.”

“Most of what’s in this moron’s email is pure crap. However … and unfortunately … the basic story is true. We are being sold. That’s why I’ve been going to St. Louis so often the past few months. I’ve been at headquarters meeting with the board and the new buyer.”

“Who’s buying?”

B. Don leaned over his desk and whispered the name.

“Really?”

“Yes,” he said. “Now, what I’ve just told you could probably get me fired … or, these days, even get me sent to jail. So–”

“I won’t breathe a word, you know that.”

The president tipped back in his chair, shook his head, and exhaled, making a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh.

“Amy, I hate to swear in front of you–”

“B. Don, it’s fine. I’m sure I know all the words.”

“But what really pisses me off is … we finally got it right. We got our production issues sorted out. And we nailed the Herbie.”

“Excuse me?”

“We nailed the Herbie.”

“The what?”

“The … the bottleneck. The system constraint. We nailed it, and it’s not movin’. And these guys are going to come in and screw it up. I just know it’s going to happen. They are going to come in high and mighty and they are going to screw it all up.”

“Don, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Well … you’re marketing. What I’m talking about is a supply chain issue–”

“Which does affect marketing. Not to mention sales.”

“Anyway … so be it. One does what one can do,” said Don. “Now, Amy, you’re a far better wordsmith than I am. Help me write something I can send out to the general world countering the so-called rumor, especially the piece of it that’s true. In other words, help me lie through my teeth and yet not seem to be completely evil or stupid in a few days’ time.”

Five months later, the shareholders and the various regulatory bodies gave their approvals and the deal closed. Hi-T Composites became a subsidiary of Winner, Inc., a global corporation headquartered in New York City. Meanwhile, Linda and Bobby had had a baby girl – Holly – and Bobby did find a job, though at a much lower...

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Verlag
Free Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2009
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1439158924
ISBN 13 
9781439158920
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
320
Kontakt zum Hersteller
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Verantwortliche Person
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