Execution-costs Books

if you want to learn about MRP this is the book but do not call it lean manufacturing implementation because it is everything but a lean manufacturing implementation manual

So call "LEAN Manufacturing Implementation" title is very appealing. Very bad decision buying this book. I have several other books on the subject. From Mr. Pyzdek to Womack (warranted satisfacton with this guy's book) and some other japanese authors on the subject. I paid $6.00 for the book "The machine that changed the world" I learned more reading this book. This book is highly priced. Shame on APICS backing up this kinda of got-to-write-a-book authors. I hope the author could read this comentary and give me money back. This book is just the product of somebody not enought professional to accept HE CAN'T WRITE A BOOK ON THE SUBJECT. Very repetitive, boring. Anyways...!!!

This treatment of Lean Manufacturing is written from the American Production and Inventory Control Society (APICS) viewpoint. The center of the manufacturing world for the production control dept. is the MRP software which makes this viewpoint on Lean interesting, especially since two of the major advantages of implementing Lean is to reduce inventories and to eliminate production control department overhead. The only requirements for MRP in a lean environment are long term raw material scheduling and finished product delivery scheduling.
Hobbs does not establish the roots of Lean (The Toyota Production System) nor does he use Japanese lean terms with the exeption of Kanban and Kaizen. Nor does he recognize the existence of the value stream map (VSM) choosing to use the process flow diagram (PFD) to define the manufacturing process. Thus Hobbs only defines process level manufacturing data and totally ignores the systems approach to lean Manufacturing. As a result the Lean Enterprise, total lead time, and how the manufacturing process relates to the whole value stream are not even adddressed. He is, however, quick to use total lead time in his so called 'Strategic Business Analysis'. Finally, the key concept of pull/flow production control is not fully compared to push/MRP production control. Herein lies the proof that pull/flow is superior.
This is the only treatment of lean manufacturing I have found that espouses providing for scrap and rework in the manufacturing process. There is no jidoka even mentioned.
Somehow the term 'MRP' shows up on almost every page. This book should be labeled 'In Defense of MRP'.
There is no bibliography - all original?

1) A lean practitioners publication 2/10
2) A lean managers publicaton 4/10
3) Clear thought/Organization 3/10
4) Information Content 2/10
5) New or original content 2/10
6) Topical relevance 2/10

This book gives a new insight about the PROCESS and shows some ways to optimally design it with minimum wastage. The concepts described here is not just limited to the manufacturing process but extends to any other business process. Consideration of the resources in Man , Machine , Workstation and Inventory sets a well-defined boundary of constraint for designing new production line.
Not only for the new line , few of the concepts of this book can be applied for optimization of the old production lines also.
As a whole this book is a good investment which can be used as guidelines for new line design and improvement of the old line.

It is very unusual when a consultant reveals their secrets to implementation concepts. Dennis Hobbs tells how to implement lean on a step by step basis. The secrets of kanban calculation in addition to line balancing are exposed. This book is a critical resource for companies interested in conducting their own lean implementations. Dennis provides detailed explanations and not just lean stories that fail to get to the real issues of how to implement the concepts.