Focused Operations Management

Preface

How can a company double its value in less than 18 months? How can an organization use existing resources to reduce the time to market in the research and development department by 40 percent and at the same time increase the product quality?

How can a company increase the throughput of the information technology department by 20 percent using the same resources?

Why do traditional cost‐accounting methods prevent firms and other organizations from making better managerial decisions in pricing, costing, investment justification, and make‐or‐buy decisions? What are the alternatives that allow for better decision making?

Why do performance measures sometimes undermine value creation?

How can the removal of inexpensive bottlenecks easily increase throughput, reduce response time, and increase quality?

Why does adding personnel and capital investments usually fail to bring about improvements in service, in high‐tech and in manufacturing organizations?

These topics and more are the theme of this book. The information should be of great value to all executive and managerial personnel in every organization, including service, research and development, manufacturing, health care, insurance, financial organizations, and government agencies. This book provides practical knowledge and tools for people in managerial as well as staff positions. Moreover, this book will be equally useful for nonprofit and for‐profit organizations, in every sector, public or private, service or industry.

This ...