Katherine's Reading List

These are the books, articles and other materials that I keep nearby on my bookshelf and find myself recommending most often to others.

Books
Dissertations
Articles

		Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit Mary Poppendieck, Tom Poppendieck Addison-Wesley, 2003. ISBN: 0321150783 Don't let the title dissuade you from reading one of the best books available about lean product development. Although Mary and Tom's examples are software-focused, their insights apply much more broadly across product development. Rumor has it that Mary and Tom are currently updating this book with their recent experiences, and I am looking forward to it.
		Product Development for the Lean Enterprise: Why Toyota's System Is Four Times More Productive and How You Can Implement It Michael N. Kennedy. Oaklea Press, 2003. ISBN: 1892538091 This is the best work in print to date about the work that Dr. Allen Ward led at the University of Michigan to find out what Toyota actually does in new product development. It does a good job of explaining the concepts that Dr. Ward and his students uncovered, framed in the context of an account of how a company launches their lean transformation.
		The Toyota Product Development System: Integrating People, Process And Technology James Morgan and Jeffrey Liker. Productivity Press, 2006. ISBN: 1563272822 This is the newest Lean Product Development book, from two of Dr. Allen Ward's colleagues at the University of Michigan. This book describes Toyota's product development system in detail, providing more details on some of the case studies from Liker's Toyota Way.
		The Hitchhiker's Guide to Lean: Lessons from the Road Andy Carlino & Jamie Flinchbaugh. Society of Manufacturing Engineers, 2005. ISBN: 0872638316 This is a refreshing addition to lean literature. Andy Carlino and Jamie Fischbaugh describe the approach to lean that they've refined through their Lean Experiences workshops at the Lean Learning Center. Their advice about leading a lean transformation is the best I've found yet, and I also like their ideas about Personal Lean.
		Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation, Revised and Updated James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones Free Press, 2003. ISBN: 0743249275 Lean Thinking is a classic. Womack and Jones articulate the lean principles that they distilled from their original research, and from watching companies apply their results in many different contexts.
		Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together. James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones Free Press: 2005. ISBN: 0743277783 This latest offering from Womack and Jones has quite a bit of insight for new product development teams who want to guide innovation towards delivering more customer value. The authors take on "customer service" systems currently designed around the convenience of the producer, such as travel and health care, challenging them to find ways to avoid waste for themselves and more importantly, for their customers.
		The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi Oxford University Press, 1995. ISBN: 0195092694 I admit that parts of this book are tough sledding, and sometimes seem more appropriate for a philosophy course than for a business book. Still, there are some great stories in here about applying the knowledge learned from direct experience to deliver innovations, and an explanation of why knowledge is at the center of new product development. This is the book I'd read right after Michael Kennedy's book to get a glimpse of some of the concepts in action.
		Enabling Knowledge Creation: How to Unlock the Mystery of Tacit Knowledge and Release the Power of Innovation Georg Von Krogh, Kazuo Ichijo, Ikujiro Nonaka Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN: 0195126165 This follow-up to The Knowledge Creating Organization has some practical advice on how to strengthen knowledge creation and re-use across the organization. It goes beyond the typical emphasis on ?managing? knowledge to discuss how to dismantle barriers and promote communities that transform knowledge into innovation.
		The Machine that Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production James P. Womack, Daniel Roos and Daniel T. Jones. Harper Perennial, 1991. ISBN: 0060974176 This is the classic that started it all. I recently re-read the book, and found its insights as valuable today as they were when the book was originally published. There has been so much written about lean in the sixteen years since then. This is a book to help us remember what it's really all about.
		The Toyota Way Jeffrey K. Liker McGraw-Hill, 2003. ISBN: 0071392319 This book is valuable mostly for the stories that it presents about Toyota's product development process. Chapters 5 and 6 discuss how the first Lexus and Prius models were developed. Although Dr. Liker does present his own distillation of principles, the frameworks from other authors apply more directly to new product development.
		Thinking Beyond Lean: How Multi-Project Management is Transforming Product Development at Toyota and Other Companies Michael A. Cusumano and Kentaro Nobeoka Free Press, 1998. ISBN: 0684849186 Read this for their description of how Toyota organized itself into product development centers to make it easier to leverage knowledge and reuse designs across products.
		Design for Six Sigma Kai Yang McGraw-Hill, 2003. ISBN: 0071412085 If your main objective is to achieve higher quality and easier manufacturability for your products, this is the book to read. It introduces the reader to techniques such as Taguchi methods, axiomatic design and TRIZ for improving the integrity of a product design.
		The Lean Design Guidebook: Everything Your Product Development Team Needs to Slash Manufacturing Costs Ron Mascitelli Technology Perspectives: 2004. ISBN: 0966269721 Ron Mascitelli's book contains a survey of practical tools for incorporating lean principles into a product's design. He covers topics such as Value Engineering, platforms and modular design, and design challenges.

Dissertations from the University of Michigan's research

Principles that Shape Product Development Systems: A Toyota-Chrysler Comparison
Durward Sobek, 1997 UMI#9722095
Available from ProQuest (800) 521-0600

In 1995, Durward Sobek spent months interviewing engineers and managers at Toyota's Vehicle Development Center #2. This dissertation describes the Toyota Development System as it was then, in comparision to the system at Chrysler. He discusses the contrasts in organization and leadership, communication, decision-making and the design process.

High Performance Product Development; A Systems Approach to a Lean Product Development Process James Morgan, 2002 UMI#3058023
Available from ProQuest (800) 521-0600

Much of this dissertation describes Jim Morgan's translation of value stream mapping into the product development process. He also updates some of the data on Toyota's product development process, especially around the interfaces between design engineering, tooling and production engineering.

Articles:

"Another Look at How Toyota Integrates Product Development"
Durward K. Sobek, Jeffrey K. Liker, and Allen C. Ward
Harvard Business Review, 1998: Vol. 76, no. 4, ppp. 36-50.

"Toyota's Principles of Set-Based Concurrent Engineering"
Durward K. Sobek, Allen C. Ward and Jeffrey K. Liker
Sloan Management Review, 1999: Vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 67 - 83