- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Free Press (15 April 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 074320381X
- ISBN-13: 978-0743203814
- Product Dimensions: 24.3 x 16.4 x 2.7 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,510,045 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Product Description
Most manufacturing companies with batch-and-queue 'push' production systems have been blindsided by today's consumer who expects quality products and services delivered on demand and customized to individual taste. In The Perfect Engine, manufacturing experts Anand Sharma and Patricia E. Moody describe for the first time how leading 'pull' production pioneers build to order by reducing inventory, decreasing cycle time, minimizing floor space, and eliminating waste. Drawing on scores of examples and detailed case studies of three leaders in the demand economy field -- Maytag, Pella, and Mercedes-Benz -- Sharma and Moody demonstrate how these companies achieved astonishing results using the pathbreaking Lean Sigma SM Transformation. Combining lean production and quality elements from the famous Six Sigma process, Lean Sigma produces annual productivity gains of 15 percent to 20 percent. In addition, the authors show, inventory turns more than quadruple; cycle times drop by more than 70 percent; and floor space reductions of 30 percent to 50 percent are not uncommon. Sharma and Moody provide immensely readable explanations of key technical aspects of the process--for example, how cell-based one-piece flow can replace batch-and-queue with dramatically improved lead times and inventory turnover. A chapter on a revolutionary design technique the authors call Design for Lean Sigma or 3P (product and production preparation) shows how to build flexibility into the product design and the production systems at very low risk, which will be especially helpful when forecasts and customer orders deviate from original projections, as they usually do. Further, the Design for Lean Sigma method is devised to produce profitability at short-term volume projections, which makes it a perfect tool for the new demand economy. Essential, timely, and important, The Perfect Engine is perfect reading for this new manufacturing era.
About the Author
Anand Sharma has spent the last two decades developing and manufacturing improvement programmes. Patricia Moody is a manufacturing management consultant with about thirty years of industry, consulting and teaching experience.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
Stepping into the huge kitchen cabinet assembly plant, you are assaulted by the sights, sounds, smell, and by-products of a very busy operation. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Stepping into the huge kitchen cabinet assembly plant, you are assaulted by the sights, sounds, smell, and by-products of a very busy operation. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Read,
By
This review is from: The Perfect Engine: How to Win in the New Demand Economy by Building to Order with Fewer Resources (Hardcover)
The Perfect Engine is described as "an organisation in which all the components are working - the product development, the people programmes, the customer focus, then the processes - that is the perfect engine."Written by Anand Sharma who was recently written up in Fortune Magazine as an American hero of manufacturing and is heralded as the latest guru on TQM, lean manufacturing and Six Sigma. He has his own consultancy, an MBA from Boston University, and has worked in industry for over 22 years with more than 500 companies including Toyota, Kellogs and Mercedes-Benz. He concludes that a synthesis of kaizen, lean manufacturing and six sigma principles can lead to increassed productivity gaines of 15 - 20%, enables stock turnover to be quadrupled, producesd a 70% drop in cycle times and cuts floor space by as much as one half. Obviously the success of the program depends on the commitment devoted to it by senior management, middle managers all the way down to the rank and file but the evidence would suggest it works. Sharma displayed the theory in practice at Pella Corporation where where he doubled sales and increased profits by 250% with no additional capital, no layoffs and within six years. And this is within what is known as a mature, slow growth sector! The book provides a wealth of information but without bogging you down in too much technical data. Written in a clear, informative style and definitely helped provides managers with a number of insights not gleaned by many similar books on the subject. Best of all it's competitively priced...
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.7 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews) 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
This book is good to a Introductary level of Lean manufacturing,
By Kim Il Kwon "kogomo" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Perfect Engine: How to Win in the New Demand Economy by Building to Order with Fewer Resources (Hardcover)
I would like to recommend that people who read this book try to get "Running Today's Facotry - Charles Standard & Dale Davis" in depth.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Strong Case for Lean,
By Bob Koople - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Perfect Engine: How to Win in the New Demand Economy by Building to Order with Fewer Resources (Hardcover)
This is a very strong case for lean. There are plenty of old economy examples to provide real world validation, as opposed to all of the high tech fluff books that are out there. I recommend this to anyone in manufacturing or services as a bible to reinvent your company's operating strategy.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Makes the case for Lean, find the details elsewhere,
By Robert A. Drensek - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Perfect Engine: How to Win in the New Demand Economy by Building to Order with Fewer Resources (Hardcover)
I have been involved in a lean transformation for 5 years and 6 sigma for 3 years. I'm a trained kaizen facilitator and 6 sigma black belt, just background for my review.
Having read the book, I found it is a sound introductory read for those looking to understand how lean and 6 sigma can transform a business. The target audience for this is managers and executive contemplating initiating this process. The authors do a great job of providing war stories of successes within thier client base. They present the basics of the tools involved. They explain what is expected of management to make an implementation successful. If you are loooking for the details on how to get it done, I'd go to other books (anything by Shingo, or go to Productivity Press). As with many consultant books, this has the feel of a marketing tool to promote their consultancy. TBM is regarded and one of the best if not the best in "Lean" in this country. Things that Anand pointed out, but some one with little experience may not pick up on are: *Continuous improvement is a journey and not a destination *Senior management MUST be directly involved for success *Use the gains to grow the business *Standard work IS the discipline in the process *Everything must be looked at from the customer's perspective These may not be new or exciting, but very true and often difficult maintain. I liked the book. I did not get out of it what I expected (more detail and insight), but I learned a few things. I can recommend the book as a starter book for some one to gain an insight on what it takes and at a high level how it works. |
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