Book Description

MASS CUSTOMIZATION--the trailblazing book that showed companies how to mass produce and individually customize their products and services--is now available in paperback.New ways of managing, together with new technology, make possible the seeming paradox of providing each customer with the "tailor-made" benefits of the pre-industrial craft system at the low costs of modern mass production.As author Joe Pine makes clear, businesses that learn to embrace mass customization are able to create greater variety and customization in their products and services at competitive prices, or better.This insightful book shows how it's done. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Essential Concept Related to Production
This book contains a winning formula for production industry to success under the dynamic economic environment and rapid changing consumer taste.

Joseph is prescient to identify an important trend on production since 1993. Although this book was written a decade ago, ¡§Mass Customization¡¨ still occupies a crucial position on maintaining an effective and efficient production line.

In this book, Joseph first introduced the main trend on production before 1970s, which was ¡§Mass Production¡¨. Then, he mentioned the change on production from ¡§Mass Production¡¨ to ¡§Mass Customization¡¨. He used a comprehensive comparison to locate the distinctive advantages of applying ¡§Mass Customization¡¨.

After persuading audience how imperative the change was. Joseph suggested three directions for companies to plan for their change: ¡§Move Incrementally¡¨, ¡§Transform the Business¡¨ and ¡§Create New Business¡¨. He also suggested five fundamental methods for companies to implement their change.

As the product life cycle becomes shorter and shorter, especially for technology related products, companies can¡¦t use only the ¡§Push¡¨ strategy to produce their product. However, they also can¡¦t produce their products only when receiving an order. It is because there is no enough time for them to do. As a result, ¡§Mass customization¡¨ helps companies to produce a critical mass for basic elements and then assemble the final product base on customer¡¦s requirement.

Moreover, Joseph used many tables and graphs to explain his idea, which help readers to understand the concept easily. Also, he provided many subtitles that help readers to concentrate on the main idea in the following paragraph.

Furthermore, it is interesting that Joseph also customized his book too. He grouped the chapters, which based on specific objective. By this action, he reinforced the main idea of ¡§Mass Customization¡¨ and facilitated readers to read this book.

In short, this book has a clear direction and systematic layout, which guide readers to understand the full picture of changing production trend.

useful but a bit oudated
After reading the book, I found a clearer picture about mass customization. Mass customization is now widely used by many businesses, but we may not know how it operates!
In this book, it tells you how you should change your business operation to mass customization step by step, also tell you 5 methods to customize your products or services. And these 5 methods are useful and practicable for designing how the business enter the market.
The stucture of the book is clear, give a full description on the development of the operation, from mass production to mass customization , and the pros and cons of those two operations, followed with the detail explanation on mass customization.
However, I think it's a bit outdated because all the things around us are mass customized and we do not have to decide whether we should change to customized operation or not, but to decide the degree of the customization.

He gets it.
What a refreshing book that is inendated with facts and research, yet the concepts have implementable steps to move your organization into the personalization future. Indeed this author "gets it" when it comes to the individualized services and products that every company should adopt. ... Read more

Book Description

No company is built to last, argues world-renowned manufacturing guru Richard J. Schonberger. After sixteen years of prosperity, he shows, nearly 75 percent of the world's most admired manufacturing companies have slipped badly from their peaks in 1995. In this devastating indictment of current manufacturing practices, Schonberger submits a four-part revolutionary plan to solve the manufacturing crisis for good.

From his statistically reliable database of 500 top global manufacturers, Schonberger finds that by the critical worldwide standard of lean production -- shedding inventories -- General Motors, General Electric, Toyota, and other world leaders have stopped improving. He presents powerful evidence that in recent years record profits have covered up waste and weakness. Clearly a lack of will to renew and recover from the natural tendency toward regression and erosion, it is more than a matter of garden-variety complacency -- devastating as that is in this new era of global hypercompetition. Schonberger asserts that the inclination of industry leaders to engage in stock hyping to gain a quick fix from the dot-com explosion has distracted attention from "the basics" of world-class excellence. Among other villains contributing to the crisis, Schonberger contends, are newly hired managers with no trial-by-fire experience; bad equipment, systems, and job design; and retention of unprofitable customers and anachronistic command-and-control managerial hierarchies.

What to do? Just as he introduced the legendary "just-in-time" framework to the West in the 1980s, Schonberger prescribes strong medicine to cure our current malaise. Find your blind spots, he says. Roll confusing, time-sapping initiatives into a master program that is immune from "the flavor of the month." Put lean into heavy-handed control systems. Develop products and standardize processes at "home base" for ease of migrating volume production anywhere in the world.

Timely and essential, Let's Fix It! will be warmly welcomed by the legions of Schonberger readers and every manufacturing manager who believes passionately in continuous improvement. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

It's about time
Schonberger opened the door to Japanese manufacturing techniques almost twenty years ago. Now, he looks at the primary indicator of mfg. performance - inventories - and proves how our early Just-in-time and Lean improvements gave way to bad practices and inventory growth. Using his data base of several hundred companies, he shows which ones fell down, which ones gained ground, and what needs fixing. An important piece for a confused and painful time in industry. ... Read more

Book Description

Group Technology and Cellular Manufacturing (GT/CM) have been widely-researched areas in the past 15 years and much progress has been made in all branches of GT/CM. Resulting from this research activity has been a proliferation of techniques for part--machine grouping, engineering data bases, expert system-based design methods for identifying part families, new analytical and simulation tools for evaluating performance of cells, new types of cell incorporating robotics and flexible automation, team-based approaches for organizing the work force and much more; however, the field lacks a careful compilation of this research and its outcomes. The editors of this book have commissioned leading researchers and implementers to prepare specific treatments of topics for their special areas of expertise in this broad-based philosophy of manufacturing. The editors have sought to be global both in coverage of topic matters and contributors.Group Technology and Cellular Manufacturing addresses the needs and interests of three groups of individuals in the manufacturing field: academic researchers, industry practitioners, and students. (1) The book provides an up-to-date perspective, incorporating the advances made in GT/CM during the past 15 years. As a natural extension to this research, it synthesizes the latest industry practices and outcomes to guide research to greater real-world relevance. (2) The book makes clear the foundations of GT/CM from the core elements of new developments which are aimed at reducing developmental and manufacturing lead times, costs, and at improving business quality and performance. (3) Finally, the book can be used as a textbook for graduate students in engineering and management for studying the field of Group Technology and Cellular Manufacturing. ... Read more

Book Description

Using real-world case studies throughout, this exploration of contemporary logistics describes the entire supply channel system -- from inbound movement of freight through materials management to physical distribution to customers.Highlights topics that affect logistics channels management -- including customer service, packaging, inventory management, traffic management, and creating "value-added" linkages in the supply chain. Considers both domestic and international logistics. Explains how to analyze, design, and implement a logistics system -- including logistics systems controls and reengineering logistics systems. Integrates cases based on real-world examples throughout to illustrate the nature of logistics and the problems faced in daily operations.For anyone involved in logistics, physical distribution, or materials management. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Required reading for the new logistics professional
Anyone working in the logistics and delivery field must read this book and keep it in your library. The book is all-inclusive so you don't need lots of others. This may help justify the high price. ... Read more

Book Description

In today's business environment, a company's ability to provide products to the marketplace quickly and cheaply is the key to survival. The lifeblood of many companies rests in the product development processes that enable them to provide a continual stream of new products that are better, cheaper, and reach the customer faster than the competition.

In Accelerated Product Development: Combining Lean and Six Sigma for Peak Performance, Clifford Fiore provides the blueprint for implementing the key elements for improving the product development process. His innovative and powerful work represents the first book to couple the proven concepts of Lean and Six Sigma with the engineering processes of product development. His results, based on proven strategies and methodologies, enable companies to significantly reduce the time necessary to develop new products, dramatically reduce product cost, and improve product quality. ... Read more

Book Description

An interesting book containing 35 examples of problems that production and inventory management professionals face throughout their working lives, Introduction to Materials Management Casebook allows readers to have a better understanding of the issues involved in their decisions on the job. It asks readers to think beyond the box, showing them the multiple concepts that must be considered to find solutions to the problems at hand.The small, focused cases presented allow readers to fully understand the problems that they can encounter; topics covered include: physical inventory, process design, purchasing, production planning, master production schedules; vanishing inventory; long-range capacity; business organization; forecasting; warehousing; consolidation; transportation; and quality.An excellent resource for those involved in production planning, inventory control, traffic, and marketing. ... Read more

Book Description

Excel Models for Business and Operations Management adopts a structured approach to management decision-making by integrating the activities of a manufacturing organization. The text is entirely assignment-based and uses Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet tool to develop over seventy models from finance, marketing and operations management. In addition, a full chapter is devoted to Excel's macro language Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). The book's learn-by-example approach helps to develop both mathematical and analytical skills by focusing on the practical aspects of business model-building. Excel Models for Business and Operations Management features
* VBA database application with full macro listing

* Formula templates for all models provided throughout the text

* Data disk containing all spreadsheet files supplied with the book

* End-of-chapter exercises with answers

* Detailed notes on Excel functions and commands
Excel Models for Business and Operations Management is ideally suited to intermediate and advanced undergraduate, as well as MBA courses in business studies, finance, accounting, information technology, and operations management. It should also be of interest to managers and analysts who want to develop their model-building skills. ... Read more

Book Description

Project management is a booming field, with the number of certifiedProject Management Professionals (PMPs) soaring from 100 to 10,000 in the pastdecade.

This is the first comprehensive review guide and test-preparation book for thePMP exam. Organized to thoroughly cover each competency area tested on the exam,it further explains how test questions are structured and offers numerous casestudies and additional resources for study.

This dual-purpose guide is also highly useful as an on-the-job reference forworking project managers. It reviews project management in the context of humanresources, finance, and statistics, paying special attention to scheduling andcost control. Readers will learn proven methods for:

* Defining the scope of a project* Estimating costs* Managing complex projects using Work Breakdown Structure techniques* Addressing risk management and quality control issues* Bidding out contracts* Communicating effectively with the project team, and much more. ... Read more

Reviews (24)

Better insight than the PMBOK
Thank you, Mike Newell, for getting me through the PMP exam! I passed on the first try, scoring more than 80%.

I used this book plus the '96 PMBOK to study for the exam. Neither book is adequate preparation alone. Newell seems to have taken a strategy of complementing the PMBOK rather than replacing it. After some experimenting, my study approach was:
1. Read a chapter of Newell to understand the topic
2. Read the corresponding chapter in the PMBOK for the data in sparse form
3. Do Newell's practice questions for the chapter

I bought the book for the practice questions (he provides two sets), and that turned out to be an important part of my study. To me, it was a bonus that I could understand Newell's discussions better than the overly terse PMBOK. Make no mistake, the PMBOK is about laying out a systematic organization in 37 "knowledge areas," 5 "process groups," etc. It is neat and highly structured, but not intuitive. I needed the insights I got from this book.

Excellent Supplement to the PMBOK
There is no doubt that you need to be thoroughly familiar with the Project Management Book of Knowledge (PMBOK) in order to pass the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification exam. I took the test this week and passed on the first try, responding to 85% of the questions correctly.
My experienct is that about 70% of all the test questions can be answered correctly using the PMBOK alone. However, a score of 70% is just passing. This means that you have to gain additional insight and knowledge from supplemental materials or attend courses to have a better chance of being certified on the first try.
The only learning tool that I used in my two weeks of preparation was Preparing for the Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification Exam by Michael W. Newell. The author's alternative presentation of the core PMBOK material made them much easier to understand. The book is especially useful for its statistics' explanations. Importantly, the book also includes many specific items that were part of the test, which do not appear in the PMBOK. The hundreds of questions contained in the book were excellent preparation for the test. In fact, many of them were actually on the test. You can't beat that!

Please avoid this book
This book is a mediocre source for preparing for the PMP. It contains too many errors, inaccurate information and it is loaded with irrelevant information for the pmp test. if you do not want to pass the pmp test then read this book.

Preparing for the Project Management Professional (PMP) Cert
Did not find this book to be useful. The "PMP®: Project Management Professional Study Guide" by Kim Heldman
provided much more benefit.

I do NOT recommend it at all..
I checked out this book from a local library, and didn't use it at all during my prep. It even doesn't cover some very important(for the exam) chapters in PMBOK. There are much better resources available.. ... Read more

Book Description

The First Guidebook for Managers on Delivering Internet Projects

"Written by a proven entrepreneur with significant experience deploying multiple complex Web businesses, 90 Days acts as a blueprint for defining, branding, architecting, scheduling, budgeting, and launching successful digital strategies." –Scott Cohen, President and Founder, Newmediary.com

"90 Days to Launch is the best compilation of checklists and blueprints that I’ve seen to keep a Web development process on time and on strategy." –James Chung, CEO, Beansprout Networks

"Internet projects are inherently difficult to manage–technology and requirements change constantly and delivery schedules are always being pressed to the limit. Shayne’s primer is a great jump-start for Internet managers forced to perform in these market conditions." –Jonathan Guerster, General Partner, Charles River Ventures

"90 Days to Launch will do for the Internet what Joy of Sex did for the boudoir."–Scott Kirsner, The Boston Globe

"Written in a straightforward, no-nonsense style, Shayne Gilbert’s 90 Days to Launch debunks the myth that successful Web projects demand fortuitous planetary alignment or supernatural acts by the project lead. This book should be read by everyone engaged in or responsible for Internet projects." –Bruce Johnston, President, idealab! Boston ... Read more

Reviews (6)

Really bad book
This is a really, really bad book full of fluff. A piece of junk full of NOTHING.

Garbage
How disappointing! Having build robust e-commerce sites in 90 days or less myself, I was hoping to find insight into the process. Methods or procedures that could be leveraged effectively to improve success. Instead this book offered nothing of value. I read it in less than 2 hours and sold it immediately.... Definite Avoid rating.

I would recommend "Web Redesign : Workflow That Works"
by Kelly Goto, Emily Cotler...

Great resource for eBusiness managers
90 Days to Launch delivers a process for the planning and implementation of eBusiness projects. These processes deliver a standard methodology that can be implemented across both complex and simple projects and is a worthwhile guide for anyone who is responsible for delivering eBusiness strategies.

The author supplements the book with an online directory of additional resources and materials that can be found at the book web site, 90daystolaunch.com

A great marketing ploy to sell her consulting services...
I was very excited to read 90 DAYS TO LAUNCH by Shayne Gilbert, being a Project Manager and MBA graduate in Chicago (seeing Shayne's Northwestern background), but was extremely disappointed in this book. The title is all wrong! "Internet projects on time and on budget" leads the reader to believe this is a resource for Project Managers (and actually states it is for PMs at some point) when it would better suit small business owners who might never have taken a class in business strategy! I hoped for some tips to help refine my PM skills, but once Shayne gets to scheduling, budgeting, and building a team, she points you to making a vendor selection - and it is only the vendor who can figure out if your scope can be achieved in the desired schedule and budget. How convenient that her website, 90daystolaunch, takes you to her consulting firm, no? ...

Blueprint for Internet Success
This insightful book is an easy read providing both the novice and the experienced entrepreneur with a practical "how-to" guide of how to efficiently quickly and within budget, launch an on-line presence. The large font of the book makes it a quick read so you can get going with the practical side of the business. A post-launch plan insures that your online business is well taken care of for a long time after it makes its debut on world wide web. This is certainly a must for anyone who even thinks of going online with a brick and mortar business or just launching a brand new business online. 90 Days to Launch is one of those books you have to keep closeby even after you've finished reading it as it is a living and working guide and notebook, a true first one of a kind blueprint to Internet launch of any business. Good luck and happy "webbing". ... Read more

Book Description

Are you an "accidental manager"? Dobson’s new book is the resource for technical professionals who suddenly discover that the skills that have made them successful aren’t necessarily relevant in their new role as project manager. Dobson covers management strategies for all technical professionals by combining solid information and extensive documentation with humor and perspective. He takes "ground-up" approach to effective management, assuming that the reader has no previous exposure or academic background, but is suddenly responsible for getting the job done! And this book works both ways. Not only does Project Management for the Technical Professional show how a technical rofessional can be a good manager, but it also demonstrates how a manager can oversee that "odd" breed we call "technical professionals." It’s a guide to the emotional challenge of management, a glossary to key terms and concepts, and a handbook for dealing with "Generation X" professionals and ageism—all in one book.

Remember…effective leadership starts within. Only through complete and honest self-assessment can you develop an action plan that sparks growth and achievement. Project Management for the Technical Professional not only helps you begin the journey, but it also brings you through to the end—successfully. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Practical guidelines for managers of people and projects
Project management is far more than just whether you know how to draw a Gantt chart or use Microsoft Project. In fact, the technical "project management" skills are often the least important skills you need to get a project done. It's the people issues, the political issues, the organizational issues that end up spelling the difference between failure and success.

Especially if you're in the IT field, or indeed in any area of high tech, there's a good chance that you became a project manager by growing out of a technical position. And when you do, you normally find out that it's a whole different world. In my experience, your organization usually doesn't spend nearly enough time helping you through this transition. It's sink or swim, and I've watched a number of people go through this process (in addition to going through it myself), to witness the full range of outcomes. Even when people succeed, it isn't easy for them.

A regular project management book often needs a supplement, and this supplement would be a excellent part of any project manager's library. It's practical, insightful, sympathetic (it's pretty clear that the author is writing from personal--and sometimes painful--experience of his own), and even witty (the footnotes have hidden jokes that only very knowledgeable science fiction readers will be able to ferret out; but don't worry, the book is still funny and fully understandable even without knowing all the references).

What does the book tell you? First, how to make the transition inside yourself to be a good project manager, with emphasis on "manager." Second, how to extend and expand your influence over people--and every real project manager knows full well that on projects you normally don't have official power over all the people whose cooperation you need. Third, how to understand all the management systems and tools that you probably didn't study in college. (The book has the best short descriptions of concepts like TQM and ISO-9000 and MBO and the like I've ever read--it's like having a quick Cliffs Notes of an entire MBA, and that's only in one chapter!)

Another review here talks about how little "technical" project management is in the book. Fair enough. If you want to know how to draw a Gantt chart, buy another book. But if you want to know how to manage people, and that hasn't been your strong suit in the past, add this one to your shelf at the same time--and I'll bet you'll refer to this one a lot more often than the other.

You Can't Judge a Book by the Title on the Cover
This book should be titled "Moving into Management for the Technical Professional." Less than twenty pages are devoted to project management. I gave it one star for meeting the expectations of the title, but for the actual topic covered it rates a three or four. It discusses the challenges and pitfalls for a technical professional who moves into the role of managing other technical professionals. And also gives good guidance on how your thinking must change to be successful in your new role. ... Read more

Book Description

Planning a shutdown? Lower your costs by reading and applying this unique reference! Originally designed as an intensive course and then honed over several years, Managing Maintenance Shutdowns and Outages organizes the details of a maintenance shutdown into a manageable form by introducing all the steps needed for a successful shutdown or outage. It includes detailed steps for each phase (initiation, planning, execution, closeout, lessons learned), massive master lists of everything you will need to do for each phase of shutdown, and numerous checklists that can immediately be put to use. Loaded with examples from many industries and actual events, this book will be an extremely useful and practical guide for maintenance managers, project engineers, supervisors, maintenance engineers, and plannersworking in any heavy maintenance environment.

Special Features You’ll Find

- Brings together the issues of maintenance planning, project management, logistics, contracting, and accounting for shutdowns.
- Includes hundreds of shutdown ideas gleaned from experts worldwide.
- Contains procedures and strategies that will improve your current shutdown planning and execution.
- Offers examples to illustrate the major points. ... Read more

Book Description

With project management methodology continually proving its worth in a myriad number of business settings, it's no surprise that more and more companies are turning to this incredibly effective productivity driver. For experienced project managers and rookies alike, The Project Management Question and Answer Book is a one-stop reference covering the most crucial processes and concepts. With questions ranging from elementary to advanced, simple to complex, this ready-to-use book can put any manager on the fast track to success. Aspiring project managers will find out:

* why PM is useful to them and their organization * how to interact with project stakeholders to maximize productivity * how to establish realistic cost, schedule, and scope baselines * what management techniques can be used to motivate teams * how to evaluate project team performance

The answers to dozens of questions will help departments and companies establish project management as a business tool and as a component for long-range success. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Practical Complement to the PMBOK
Im a practicing PM and currently reviewing for PMI's CAPM certification.

I have this book and the PMBOK. I find this book to be clear and with useable, practical examples. ... Read more

Book Description

Six Sigma Tool Navigator

The Master Guide for Teams

Walter J. Michalski and Dana G. King

Six Sigma Tool Navigator is the only lean resource that provides a complete compendium of tools for teams engaged in Six Sigma improvement activities. In addition, it offers actual tools, definitions and techniques you need to move your organization closer to producing minimal defects.

Six Sigma Tool Navigator includes a complete collection of the latest improvement techniques and Six Sigma tool strings. The tool strings allow Six Sigma teams to combine Six Sigma tools to accomplish a particular outcome.

Highlights include:

· Over 70 tool string flowcharts
· More than 100 illustrated tools including tables, matrices, flowcharts, networks, and diagrams
· A Six Sigma tools cross reference section
· Comprehensive statistical tables
· 222 tools for improvement activities

Six Sigma Tool Navigator goes beyond mere definitions — It acts as a true navigator, classifying each tool by process application, description of various applications of the tool, possible links to "before and after" tools, and problem-solving phases most applicable for the tool. And all of this information and guidance is provided in an easy-to-use format.

Six Sigma Tool Navigator will enhance your team facilitation skills and assist you at every step in your diverse problem-solving and process-improvement efforts. ... Read more

Book Description

What is the true source of a firm's long-term competitive advantage in manufacturing?Through original field studies, historical research, and statistical analyses, this book shows how Toyota Motor Corporation, one of the world's largest automobile companies, built distinctive capabilities in production, product development, and supplier management. Fujimoto asserts that it is Toyota's evolutionary learning capability that gives the company its advantage and demonstrates how this learning is put to use in daily work. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Strategic capabilities can be born unintentionnally
A book that tries to highlight the role of system formation processes that aren't deliberately planned in Toyota. It is written after the author's past works on functional analysis of existing/planned manufacturing systems in automobile industry and Toyota in particular. The presentation adopts the evolutionary approach considering that manufacturing systems aren't merely a product of deliberately planning. Some of Toyota's successful routines may have originated unintentionally. Social systems often evolve because of unanticipated events and unplanned behavior. This idea is related to system emergence, a concept central to the evolutionary framework the author has adopted. What the author has presented and uncovered from Toyota's experience can be happened in other companies or may have been taken place in other companies. This is an example of presentation that we cannot find easily for other successful companies using an evolutionary approach, not strictly in a neo-darwinian framework. This book gives us general idea on how company's organizational capabilities were born and helps us understand particularly how Toyota has created its style manufacturing system and capabilities. A book that is worth-reading not only for scholars and students in management and organizational science, but also by those being actors in companies' building capabilities. ... Read more

Book Description

Japanese manufacturing firms established in Britain have often been portrayed as carriers of Japanese corporate best practice for work and employment. In this book, the authors challenge these views through case study research, undertaken at several Japanese manufacturing plants in Britain during the 1990s. The authors argue that in actual fact production and employment regimes are adapted and 're-made' in a number of ways, responding to specific corporate and local contexts. In particular, they focus upon the ways in which Japanese and British managers have sought to construct distinctive work regimes in the light of their particular branch plant mandates and competencies, the evolving character of management-worker relations within factories and the varied product and labor market conditions they face. The book highlights the constraints as well as the opportunities facing managers of these greenfield workplaces, and the uncertainties that continued to characterize the development of management strategies. Ultimately the authors show how arguments about the role of overseas branch plants in the dissemination of management practices must take more careful account of the varied ways in which such factories are implicated in wider corporate strategies. The operations of international firms are embedded within intractable features of capitalist employment relations, especially as they are 're-made' in specific local and national settings. This book is an important intervention in contemporary debate about international firms and globalization, and will be of interest to teachers, researchers, and advanced students of this subject from disciplines including Business Studies, Organization Studies, Industrial Relations, Sociology, Political Economy, and Economic and Social Geography. ... Read more

Book Description

Besides scheduling problems for single and parallel machines and shop scheduling problems the book covers advanced models involving due-dates, sequence dependent changeover times and batching. Also multiprocessor task scheduling and problems with multipurpose machines are discussed. The methods used to solve these problems are linear programming, dynamic programming, branch-and-bound algorithms, and local search heuristics. Complexity results for the different classes of deterministic scheduling problems are summarized. ... Read more

Book Description

This second edition of Cases in Contemporary Strategy Analysis represents a continuing commitment to examining current business theory in the context of real business situations. It successfully considers how today's rapid technological changes and increasingly international markets compound the difficulties of decision-making.

The seventeen cases included in this book focus on implementation of strategy. Most cases have been selected from companies and managers who are well-known leaders in their industries. Cases from smaller or more obscure companies have been selected for their unique approach to implementing strategy.

Used in conjunction with the best-selling Contemporary Strategy Analysis, Third Edition, or as a stand-alone collection, this casebook provides an invaluable resource for upcoming strategic managers as they learn to successfully formulate and implement strategic decisions in today's changing world. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Nice work by Grant and Neupert
I use Cases in Contemporary Strategy Analysis in my Capstone course (final course) for my MBA graduate students.It provides them with excellent insight into corporate decision making and strategic planning processes.The case studies are interesting and rich for discussion.My only criticism is the world of business is so fast paced.I would have like to see an internet site or CD ROM with more current information on the companies.Many of the organizational case studies were dated 1998.A myriad of financial, economic, marketing, and strategic changes occurred since the printing of the text.Overall, I recommend the book for textbook use. ... Read more

Book Description

Edited by an expert in the maintenance field, and with in-depth contributions from professionals in asset maintenance management, as well as consultants, university instructors, and experts in specific maintenance techniques, Asset Maintenance Management contains a wealth of information never before gathered in one package! Providing companies with the methods, strategies, and practices that will help efficiently and effectively direct and shape their asset management operations, this comprehensive reference is sure to be found useful by supervisors, plant managers, and directors who own, manage, or service physical plants.

Key Features...

- Reviews the eight major "policy sectors"—Activities Development, People Development, Planning, Contracting, Control, Computer System Solutions, Asset Management Tools, and Auditing.
- Demonstrates the necessity of and a methodology for developing asset maintenance management strategies to meet defined targets and commitments.
- Describes proven best practices based on actual experience.
- Provides options for how asset maintenance managers can implement their strategies and obtain the involvement and support of other key players in their organizations.
- Assists managers in determining how the implementation of new maintenance strategies will bring performance improvements to the company overall and the specific individuals affected.

Available for sale in North America only. ... Read more