This book should be one the essential books for all businesses with employees. The authors make a very convincing argument that truly effective and high performance companies only do so through what they call the idea revolution.

The idea revolution is about taking the many small ideas that employees generate and evaluate, test and implement them quickly and efficiently – rather than searching for the one big or grand idea which is more likely to be discovered and copied by your competition.

Small ideas are much less likely to be copied by your competition. Yet the shear volume of small ideas with their small incremental changes adds up to a truly transformational organization.

In the high performance organizations that the authors studied employees averaged over 100 ideas every year. No manager could possibly hope to manage this; the solution was to push decision making authority for most of them back down closer to the employees and their supervisors.

The authors also make the proposition that employee ideas – handled properly – are a virtually unlimited, free and perpetually renewable source of competitive advantage.

This would be especially true for those small businesses that can understand the concepts they put forth and harness the power of their employees.

At the end of each chapter the authors give “Guerrilla Tactics” for actions that can promote ideas that any business owner and managers can take and require little or no resources.

This is a compelling and quick read. Get the book today!
 

We have done an extensive update of the Small Business Assessment tool.  We are now on verison V and we have made it even more user friendly and much more responsive for you, the user.

Please take advantage of this tool, today!  Go to the Resource Library and then to Tools to download your copy.

We have just added a Guerrilla Marketing Listing of Why People Buy to the Resource Library, Tool section. Download and review this listing to gain some insight on how you can better understand you clients and customers.
 

Learning to See - Mike Rother & John Shook
 

Another Lean Manufacturing book. This worthy workbook walks the reader through the process of Value Stream Mapping. VSM is one the foundation blocks of Lean.

By identifying the value stream of any product or product line, the reader will be able to map the current state of the value stream and design the future state they would desire to get to (perfection).

The authors show how the path from current state to future state involves removing bottlenecks and waste and how to go about eliminating them.

An excellent interactive workbook for understanding and applying Value Stream Mapping.
 

We have just added a Guerrilla Marketing Listing of Weapons to the Resource Library, Tool section. Download and review this listing to see how many you’re using. If you’re not using a least 20, contact us for a free, no obligation Business Health Check Up and Consultation.
 

Lean Thinking - James Womack & Daniel Jones

If you have decided to explore Lean Manufacturing further, “Lean Thinking” is the seminal tract to read. “Lean Thinking” and its predecessor “The Machine That Changed the World” are the books that made Lean concepts known worldwide.

Womack and Jones explore the various ideas and theory that make up Lean thought. Lean thinking to help managers clearly specify value, to line up all the value-creating activities for a specific product along a value stream and to make value flow smoothly at the pull of the customer in pursuit of perfection.

They further make the argument for the next stage – the Lean Enterprise. Where lean techniques can be applied to all areas of the enterprise, not just production.
 

We have just added a Goal Setting Form to the Resource Library, Tool section. This will assist you in both setting and achieving your short and mid term goals and objectives.
 

Small Manufacturer’s Tool Kit - Steve Novak

This is the first book a manufacturing small business decision maker should get, read and understand. Novak has written a well documented guide to selecting the techniques and systems to help the small manufacturer succeed.

This book reviews and discusses all the current thought on manufacturing excellence. From the basics like inventory management, Scheduling and MRP to Lean, Theory of Constraints, Six Sigma and ERP and everything in between.

By doing such a thorough job of laying out the advantages and disadvantages of each technique and system and how they interrelate (and more importantly never displaying any bias towards any of them), Novak enables the owner make informed decisions.
 

We have just added a Cash Flow Projection Tool to the Resource Library, Tool section. This will help you develop your Cash Flow Forecast. It is simple to use and provides powerful information to assist you in running your business, please download this free tool today.

Lean Administration - B. Wiegand & P. Frank

Interest in lean has spread beyond the manufacturing to administration processes and to all kind of service businesses. The authors have shown how to introduce lean thinking into non-manufacturing areas including very complex enterprise wide processes.

In volume one they show how to understand the different workflows, map them, identify work elements and how it is possible to build and spread lean administrative processes throughout the enterprise.