
Let's Fix It!
Overcoming the Crisis in Manufacturing
Richard J. Schonberger(Author)
The Free Press
Published on 25. June 2007
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-1-4165-6787-5 (ISBN)
Description
No company is built to last, argues world-renowned manufacturing guru Richard J. Schonberger. 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.
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.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Simon & Schuster
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
500 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4165-6787-5 (9781416567875)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
12/2001
1st Edition
Free Press
€15.81
Available for download
Person
Richard J. Schonberger, PhD, is president of Schonberger & Associates of Seattle. He is the author of more than 170 articles and papers, a twelve-volume video set, and several books.
Content
Contents
Preface
1 Complacency
2 Renewal
3 Competitiveness
4 Programs and Their Half-lives
5 Success
6 Performance Management: The Human Side
7 Performance Management: Control Without Controls
8 Focused Form and Structure
9 Focus Within
10 Strategy of Global Proportions
11 Continuous Improvement Up-to-Date
12 Manufacturing's Burdens-and Responses
13 Systems: Some Come with an "E"
Appendix 1: The Strong and the Weak
Appendix 2: WCP International Benchmarking Study
Participants and Global Benchmarking Partners
Appendix 3: Two Elements of the World Class by Principles (WCP) International Benchmarking Project
Notes
Index
Preface
1 Complacency
2 Renewal
3 Competitiveness
4 Programs and Their Half-lives
5 Success
6 Performance Management: The Human Side
7 Performance Management: Control Without Controls
8 Focused Form and Structure
9 Focus Within
10 Strategy of Global Proportions
11 Continuous Improvement Up-to-Date
12 Manufacturing's Burdens-and Responses
13 Systems: Some Come with an "E"
Appendix 1: The Strong and the Weak
Appendix 2: WCP International Benchmarking Study
Participants and Global Benchmarking Partners
Appendix 3: Two Elements of the World Class by Principles (WCP) International Benchmarking Project
Notes
Index