Here are some recommended resources to learn more. Links refer to Amazon.com:

Administrative Lean Practices

• The Complete Lean Enterprise: Value Stream Mapping For Administrative And Office Processes, by Beau Keyte and Drew Locher, Productivity Press: New York, 2004. Originally developed for the Lean Enterprise Institute, this book shows step-by-step how to map administrative functions that support manufacturing operations. A logical extension of Value Stream Mapping for manufacturers.



• Time the Next Direction of Quality, produced by CRM Learning.


• Freed From Command and Control: A Better Way To Make The Work Work, by John Seddon.

Financial Management

• The Great Game of Business, by Jack Stack, with Bo Burlingham, Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group: New York, 1992 (paperback ed. pub. by Currency Doubleday: New York, 1994). Stack turned-around a poorly performing heavy industrial operation by training employees in how to read financial statements, incentivizing them with company stock and empowering them to reduce costs and increase productivity. Stack started the "open books" movement.



• The Theory of Constraints and Its Implications for Management Accounting, by Eric Noreen, Debra Smith, James MacKey.

Lean Manufacturing

• The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox, The North River Press, Great Barrington, MA, 1986, rev. 1993. This novel is the story of how one man—and his mentor—learned how to eliminate the roadblocks in his processes, and turn around the business in 90 days. Along the way he faces many challenges, both business and personal, and learns an important lesson from each one. This book is a foundation of the lean revolution, based on the "Theory of Constraints."



• Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together, by James P. Womack and Daniel P. Jones, Free Press: New York, 2005. These lean manufacturing gurus show how lean practices are for everyone, not just manufacturers. They also show how to map the value stream from the customer's point of view, coining the term "lean consumption."



• Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated, by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones, Free Press: New York, revised and updated edition, 2003 (originally published 1996). Lean manufacturing requires a cultural change in a company adopting it's approaches, and it requires a thought-process change in corporate CEO's. This book describes how to change your thought processes.



• The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production, by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones and Daniel Roos, Harper Perennial: New York, 1991 (originally published by Rawson Associates: New York, 1990). Toyota doesn't make cars; it makes systems that make cars, and this book brought the Toyota Manufacturing System to America and Europe.



• Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production, by Taiichi Ohno, Productivity Press: New York, 1988. Translation of: Toyota seisan hõshiki, Diamond Inc.: Tokyo, 1978. This book is the Master's voice, the story of the Toyota Producton System by the man who created it.



• Cellular Manufacturing; One-Piece Flow for Workteams, Created by the Productivity Development Team, Productivity Press (Shopfloor Series), Portland, OR, 1999. Key text for this advanced manufacturing technique.

Management

• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It, by Michael E. Gerber, HarperCollins Publishers: New York, 1995, 2001. Improve your management by documenting your business as if you were going to franchise it. Free yourself from your business.



• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't, by Jim Collins. "Good is the enemy of Great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great." Collins describes a set of companies that made the transition from good to great, and sustained that level of performance for 15 years. He then compares those companies to other well-knowns who failed to make the transition. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers, while the other set remained only good? Empirically rigorous, Collins shows the pathway from good to great.



• Nuts! Southwest Airlines' Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, by Kevin Freiberg and Jackie Freiberg, Bard Press: Austin, Texas, 1996. One of the best books ever on corporate culture and how it affects performance. The story of how Southwest Airlines made its culture a competitive asset. It's a bit repetitious, and it's a long commercial for Southwest, but these management consultants analyze in detail why culture is important, and how you can make your corporate culture a competitive weapon.



• 100 Ways To Motivate Others: How Great Leaders Can Produce Insane Results Without Driving People Crazy, by Steve Chandler and Scott Richardson, Career Press: Franklin Lakes, NJ, 2005. Real and useful techniques that work!

Marketing

• The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success, by Lon Safko and David K. Brake, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: Hoboken, NJ, 2009. Unlock the mysteries of this new Internet wave. Learn how corporations and not-for-profits use these new media to reach their audiences with power and efficiency.



• The One-to-One Future, by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D., Currency DoubleDay: New York, 1993 (original hardback), 1996, 1997 (Currency paperback). It's cheaper to keep an old customer than to get a new one. Four kinds of people: prospects, customers, loyal customers and former customers.



• Crossing the Chasm, by Geoffrey A. Moore, HarperCollins Publishers: New York, 1991 (original hardcover), 1999, 2002. New products and ideas follow a curve through a population: innovators, early adopters, early & late majority, and laggards. The "chasm" is between the early adopters and the early majority.



• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell, Little Brown & Company: New York, 2000 (paperback published by Back Bay: New York, 2002). Shows how ideas spread through a population from one person to another, like viral marketing.



• Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable, by Seth Godin, Portfolio: New York, 2003. Cows, after you've seen one or two or ten, are boring. A purple cow, though... now that would be something! It would be worth remarking on; it would be remarkable! Purple cow-ness is inherent; it's built right in, or it's not there. Period.



• The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk!, by Al Ries & Jack Trout, Harper Business: New York, 1993 (paperback first published 1994). In 22 short chapters, the authors describe the "laws" of marketing. Violators beware! You will not succeed! Learn why Xerox can't sell computers.



• Jump Start Your Business Brain: Scientific Ideas and Advice That Will Immediately Double Your Business Success ate, by Doug Hall, Eureka Institute, Inc.: Cincinnati, 2001. Define the three key elements of your "elevator pitch" and the basis of your business strategy: (a) overt benefit; (b) dramatic difference; and (c) real reason to believe.
• Guerrilla Marketing, 4th edition: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your SmallBusiness, by Jay Contrad Levinson: Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 2007. A recent update of the seminal work on how to wage a marketing campaign with little or no money.

Measurement

• Lean Measurable System, Ford production System, Ford
• "Lean Indicators and Manufacturing Strategies," by Angel Martinez Sanchez and Manuela Perez Perez, University of Saragoza, Spain (paper).

Personal Growth

• Flow the Psychology of Optimal Experience, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Harper & Row: New York, 1990 (paperback: HarperPerennial, 1991; repub. 2006). "Twenty-three hundred years ago Aristotle concluded that, more than anything else, men and women seek happiness..." Happiness is shown to be the intesection of skills and challenge, resulting in apathy, anxiety, relaxation, or FLOW.

Set-up Reduction

• Quick Changeover for Operators: The SMED System, created by the Productivity Press Development Team, Productivity Press (Shopfloor Series), Portland, OR, 1996. Adapted from A Revolution in Manufacturing: The SMED System, by Shigeo Shingo (see below).
• A revolution in Manufacturing: The SMED System, by Shigeo Shingo, English edition, Productivity Press, Portland, OR, 1985, based on Shinguru Dandori, Japan Management Association, 1983, originally translated by Andrew P. Dillon.

Strategy and Strategic Planning

• Good to Great, by Jim Collins. Great companies are different from good companies. Understanding what makes great companies great can help you make a good company a great company.



• Built to Last, by Jim Collins. A few companies will last across the decades, or even across centuries, because they are built that way.



• Beyond Entrepreneurship, by Jim Collins.

Supply Chain Management

• Value Stream Management: Strategy and Excellence in the Supply Chain, by Peter Hines, Richard Lamminq, Dan Jones, Paul Cousins, Nick Rich, Pearson Education Ltd., Harlow, England, 2000.
• Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Planning, and Operation, by Sunil Chopra, Peter Meindl, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2001.

Teams & Empowerment

• Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace, by Ricardo Semler, Warner Business Books, New York, 1993.

Total Productive Maintenance

• TPM for Every Operator, Edited by the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance, translated into English by Andrew P. Dillon, Productivity Press (Shopfloor Series), Portland, OR, 1996. Originally published as Yoku Wakaru TPM Shiriizu: Watashitachi No TPM, Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance, 1988, 1992.

Transformation

• Kaikaku: The Power and Magic of Lean; A Study in Knowledge Transfer, by Norman Bodek, PCS Press, Vancouver, Washington, 2004. "Kaikaku" means radical change. If we want to meet competition in this global economy, we must be able to change swiftly. In the early 1980’s, Bodek met Taiichi Ohno (author of The Toyota Production System), Shigeo Shingo, and other great manufacturing geniuses. He started Productivity Press to publish their books in English and brought their ideas to the west: Lean, JIT, Kanban, 5S, SMED, TPM, QFD, Hoshin, CEDAC, Kaizen Blitz and other powerful improvement tools and techniques. Kaikaku is about Bodek's discovery of Lean, whom he met, how he met them, and the colorful stories about the great manufacturing geniuses of our time. He started the Shingo Prize and has traveled to Japan 59 times to find their wonderful "jewels" to share with the West.
• Implementing a Lean Management System, by Thomas L. Jackson, with Karren R. Jones, Productivity Press, Portland, OR, 1996.
• Take It to the Next Level: A Story of the Quest for Quality and the Malcolm Baldrige Award, by Dale Crownover, with Linda Bush and John Darrouzet, NextLevel Press, Dallas, 1999.

Value Stream Mapping

• Creating Mixed Model Value Streams, by Kevin Duggan, Productivity Press.
• Value Stream Mapping Workshop (formerly Learning to See; A Value Stream Maping Workshop); Participant Guide, by Mike Rother and John Shook (Foreward by Jim Womack and Dan Jones), Lean Enterprise Institute, Brookline, MA, Version 1.1, October 2002.

Visual Controls

• The Visual Factory by Michel Greif
• Visual Control Systems by Factory Management Series
• 5S for Operators; 5 Pillars of the Visual Workplace, by Hiroyuki Hirano, created by the Productivity Press Development Team, Productivity Press, Portland, OR, 1996. Adapted from 5 Pillars of the Visual Workplace: The Sourcebook for 5S Implementation, by Hiroyuki Hirano, English editiion, Productivity Press, 1995; based on 5S Shido Manyuaru, Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun, Ltd., Tokyo, 1990.
• The 5 S's by Tasashi Osada
• Autonomous Maintenance by Masaji Tajiri and Fumio Gotoh.

Apparel Industry

• Stitch in Time: Lean Retailing and the Transformation of Manufacturing: Lessons from the Apparel and Textile Industries, by Abernathy, et al.