One of the questions I get asked most frequently by people interested in learning more about continuous improvement (CI) is “What books would you recommend to get started?” Here are my top 5 book recommendations. I found all of these books extremely helpful throughout my learning journey and I hope you do too! Links to purchase each book are included below.
Do you have a favorite book on this topic? Be sure to let us know what it is in the comments!
The Machine That Changed the World
Authors: James Womack, Daniel Jones, and Daniel Roos
The classic, nationally best-selling book that first articulated the principles of lean production.
When The Machine That Changed the World was first published in 1990, Toyota was half the size of General Motors. Twenty years later Toyota passed GM as the world’s largest auto maker. This management classic was the first book to reveal Toyota’s lean production system that is the basis for its enduring success.
Out of the Crisis
Author: W. Edward Deming
The classic and deeply influential work on business management, leadership, problem solving, and quality control—based on Deming’s famous 14 Points for Management.
Translated into 12 languages and continuously in print since its original publication in 1982, this highly influential framework presents the foundations for a completely transformational way to lead and manage people, processes, and resources.
The Toyota Way
Author: Jeffrey Liker
Multiple Shingo Award-winning management and operations expert Jeffrey K. Liker provides a deep dive into Toyota’s world-changing processes, showing how you can learn from it to develop your own improvement program that fits your conditions. Thanks in large part to this book, managers across the globe are creating workforces and systems that produce the highest-quality products and services, establish and retain customer loyalty, and drive business profitability and sustainability.
Learning to See
Authors: Mike Rother and John Shook
In 1998 John teamed with Mike Rother of the University of Michigan to write down Toyota’s mapping methodology for the first time in Learning to See. This simple tool makes it possible for you to see through the clutter of a complex plant. With this knowledge in hand it is much easier to envision a “future state” for each product family in which wasteful actions are eliminated and production can be pulled smoothly ahead by the customer.
Gemba Kaizen
Author: Masaaki Imai
The definitive, fully up-to-date guide to continuous improvement in the workplace
Written by Masaaki Imai, pioneer of modern business operational excellence and founder of the Kaizen Institute, Gemba Kaizen, Second Edition is an in-depth revision of this renowned, bestselling work. The book reveals how to implement cost-effective, incremental improvements in your most critical business processes.
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Do you have a favorite book on this topic? Be sure to let us know what it is in the comments!