Top 10 Books on Operational Excellence

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Operational Excellence: Journey to Creating Sustainable Value

John S. Mitchell
Level: Introductory

"Provides the foundation and tools that are essential for an enterprise to bring Operational Excellence into their organizational culture; gain maximum results, benefits and value"

The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement: Linking Strategy and Operational Excellence to Achieve Superior Performance

Jeffrey K. Liker, James K. Franz
Level: Introductory

Building upon the international bestselling Toyota Way series of books by Jeffrey Liker, The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement looks critically at lean deployments and identifies the root causes of why most of them fail.

The Six Sigma Way: How to Maximize the Impact of Your Change and Improvement Efforts

Peter Pande, Robert Neuman, Roland Cavanagh
Level: Introductory

Ranked in TIME's Top 25 Most Influential Management Books of All Time, The Six Sigma Way was among the very first books to clearly explain the impressive benefits of Six Sigma’s improvement-driven and customer-centric approach to business leaders and managers.

Redefining Operational Excellence: New Strategies for Maximizing Performance and Profits Across the Organization

Andrew Miller
Level: Moderate Experience

"Miller states "Operational excellence is the constant pursuit of improved performance and profitability in all areas of your organization." OE is not only about production throughput, standardization, and waste reduction measured by Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing to increase customer value, but also about creating performance value through employee, customer, and supply chain interactions."

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Design for Operational Excellence: A Breakthrough Strategy for Business Growth

Kevin Duggan
Level: Moderate Experience

“Design for Operational Excellence is a blueprint for a joined up, end-to-end designed operation that makes Operational Excellence a reality. The book excellently outlines the process of creating flow that every employee can see and, most importantly, fix without management intervention." 

The High-Velocity Edge: How Market Leaders Leverage Operational Excellence to Beat the Competition

Steven J. Spear
Level: Moderate Experience

"While this book is tailored to business leaders, it should be read by high school seniors, college students, and those already in the workforce. With the broad societal application of these ideas, we can achieve levels of accomplishment not even imagined by most people."

Managing to Learn: Using the A3 Management Process to Solve Problems, Gain Agreement, Mentor and Lead

John Shook
Level: Experienced

Managing to Learn by Toyota veteran John Shook, reveals the thinking underlying the vital A3 management process at the heart of lean management and lean leadership. Constructed as a dialogue between a manager and his boss, the book explains how A3 thinking helps managers and executives identify, frame, and then act on problems and challenges.

A Revolution in Manufacturing: The SMED System: Single-minute Exchange of Die System

Shigeo Shingo
Level: Expert

Written by the industrial engineer who developed SMED (single-minute exchange of die) for Toyota, A Revolution in Manufacturing provides a full overview of this powerful just in timeproduction tool. It offers the most complete and detailed instructions available anywhere for transforming a manufacturing environment in ways that will speed up production and make small lot inventories feasible.

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

Eric Ries
Level: Moderate Experience

The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively.  Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want.

The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement

Eliyahu M. Goldratt & Jeff Cox
Level: Wider Reading

Recommended by Jeff Bezos, The Goal, a gripping novel, is transforming management thinking throughout the world. It is a book to recommend to your friends in industry - even to your bosses - but not to your competitors. Alex Rogo is a harried plant manager working ever more desperately to try improve performance. His factory is rapidly heading for disaster. So is his marriage. He has ninety days to save his plant - or it will be closed by corporate HQ