A practical, no holds barred look at the production process
351815
If you are looking for a practical, REALISTIC book on how to begin and finish the production process, this is the book for you. I began my very extensive hunt for a book that would spell out the production process from A-Z. This book delivered on what it said. Very often in this industry it can be smoke and mirrors...not here my friend. Myrl speaks from experience and gives it to you straight. You WILL understand the production process from start to finish after reading this book.
As an added note, I was so impressed with the book that I contacted Myrl to consult with me on a recent project. He delivered on his promises and helped me guide my project to a successful finish. A five-star book and a five-star person.
1863588
This book delivers great insight into what goes on in software development.  Although presented in the context of work performed on Microsoft Visual C++ 1.0, the author does a good job of generalizing specific experience.  McCarthy gives us an honest look into the ups and downs without sugar coating or promising silver bullets.
Presented in a format similar to Meyers' "Effective C++" books, the text flows very well and is a pleasure to read.  When you read many of the pitfals presented, you may think "Duh!".  However, these are things that I see happen regularly.  Here are some of the highlights.
Rule #2 "Get Their Heads Into The Game".  This sounds like a very simple rule.  Everyone on the team needs to be contributing ideas toward creating intellectual property.  However, most people know this is easier said than done.  McCarthy goes on to explain the barriers to the flow of ideas.
Rule #4 "Don't Flip The Bozo Bit".  This rule is necessary to keep #2 working.  The author deals with the natural tendency that people have to become defensive when criticism is offered of their ideas.  This can actually cause both the critic and the one being criticized to tune each other out.  The author suggests that team members call each other on it when the Bozo Bit is being flipped.
Rule #25 "Don't Accept Dictation".  This topic is addressed in many other texts, but that fact should tell us that we aren't getting it.  McCarthy reminds us that it is foolish to accept dictation of scheudle, features, and resources.  The "Holy Triangle" has to be balanced and tradeoffs are required when changing any one of these three.  Managers are encouraged to be strong and take a stand when they find themselves in this situation.  Eight years after this book was published, I still see this very thing happening.  Until something changes, we will continue to see this issue addressed in software management texts.
Rule #31 "Beware Of A Guy In A Room".  Software development is a collaborative effort.  Don't let people isolate themselves.  There is no opportunity for feedback or help when problems arise, and this can derail the project.
The appendix on "Hiring And Keeping Good People" is also very helpful.  If you are like most managers, you didn't get to hire most of the people that work for you.  Here you will find practical advice for letting your superstars reach their potential and getting something out of everyone.
4443848
A useful overview of post-production, but folks looking for more detail or depth in each specific area or topic may be disappointed
4971807
Warehouse Management: A Complete Guide to Improving Efficiency and Minimizing Costs in the Modern Warehouse, 2nd Edition by warehouse management and logistics specialist Gwynne Richards, is a comprehensive guide to all considerations for managers looking to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their warehouse operations. In fact, that title does not do the book justice, and Complete is a term not to be brushed over in this case. A Guide to Modern Warehouse Safety, Automation, Sustainability, Outsourcing, Systems, Picking, Equipment, and Performance Management Strategy is more accurate but not concise or catchy enough.

In addition to covering a dizzying array of warehouse management topics in incredible detail, Richards has included well over 100 elaborative figures and tables in the book. In the introduction, he points out that the second edition (the first was published in 2011) includes more case studies as well as more photographs and links to informational videos.

Richards leaned on the expertise of impressive contributors, including Kate Vitasek, author of the Vested Outsourcing series of books. If you haven't read any of them yet, Warehouse Management provides exposure to the basic tenets of Vitaseks outsourcing philosophy in the chapter on outsourcing.

For being a career specialist in warehouse management, Richards is also clearly well steeped in general business practices and strategy. Most of my notes and underlines in my copy of the book apply to any company department or function looking to improve its contribution to corporate competitive advantage. For example, in the books introduction, Richards states, These advances in technology are likely to lead to a significant reduction in staff and improved efficiency. This comes at a cost, however. He then writes, Automating a bad process might make it quicker but certainly doesnt make it more efficient.

For professionals trying to tie their roles in logistics, procurement, or purchasing to the larger supply chain, the warehouse becomes a physical epicenter for their efforts as well as an opportunity to observe the evidence of trends and changes in management philosophy. Greater collaboration within the supply chain both vertically and horizontally will lead to greater consolidation and an increase in shared-user operations, Richards writes. There is nothing conceptual about greater supply collaboration in the warehouse. Well-intended strategies either work or create bottlenecks that result in operational headaches and higher costs.

Warehouse Management manages to address the full spectrum of knowledge needs on the topic, covering everything from the role of the warehouse and detailed information on picking, to chapters on sustainability, outsourcing, performance management, and the warehouse of the future.

At over 400 pages, you are unlikely to get through everything Warehouse Management has to offer in one airplane ride, but you are quite likely to wear out and dog-ear plenty of pages that address the challenges and opportunities arising daily in the modern warehouse.
211322
This book is easy to follow.  Rick Young keeps the reader on track.  I was able to quickly get through the material needed to get started on projects.  I appreciate the effort to portray the graphic material in color, as it allows for a quick understanding of the different tools and functions of Final Cut Pro, in a visual fashion.

The content is direct and to the point, unlike much thicker books which tend to ramble on and stray off course.  The book also delves into detailed information on the different media types to provide the user information on the best way to import data from the various types of media, such as SD and CF cards.

One specific area covered, that I found extremely helpful, gets into the use of SSD hard drives, and how they can provide Final Cut Pro users an option to get the most out of them, should they decide to purchase this type of storage device.

The section on multicams is useful to know, especially if you plan to move into this area as I do.  Final Cut Pro, along with this book will really help out folks who are serious about video editing.

I can tell you from experience, most video editing tools on the market are a waste of time, resulting in frustration and disappointment.
50542
well done and useful with just the right amount of background
3467232
Mr. Ohno's book is not just a story of manufacturing - it is a story of how to run a business successfully. Along with co-developer Shigeo Shingo, they followed down Henry Ford's earlier path in which he mined ore on a Monday, and produce a finished car using that ore on Thursday afternoon. In addition, they reduced inventories, and changeover times from days and hours to minutes and seconds. They also eliminated job classifications, giving workers flexibility. TPS facilities never have workers simply watching a machine - that's simply pure waste.

The TPS system makes each item one at a time, while classical American manufacturing made things in large, homogeneous quantities. Manufacturers can no longer simply push their products onto the market; now they must allow customers to pull the products they want and need.

At the end of WWII, it was estimated that it took nine Japanese to do the job of one American. Domestic production in Japan's auto industry in 1949 was 1,008 cars and 25,622 trucks. Toyoda Kiichiro advocated catching up with America in three years. This suggested that there were enormous opportunities to eliminate waste. Two pillars came to underlie that effort - just-in-time, and 'autonomation' (automation with a human touch). It was also recognized that when there is a delay in correcting errors, too many workers would make too many bad parts. 'Just-in-time' involved changing from 'pushing' individual parts made en masse forward to 'pulling' required parts forward, as needed. Autonomation came about because despite many machines being able to operate by themselves, they also are vulnerable to small abnormalities such as breakage of dies or taps --> unintended mass production of defective products, absent automatic checking. This concept originated in Toyoda's earlier weaving machines that distinguished between normal and abnormal conditions and stopped instantly if one of the threads broke. Most machines in Toyota plants are now equipped with such devices as well as safety devices and fool-proofing systems --> human intelligence built into them. Thus, an operator is not needed while the machine is working normally - only when the machine stops because of an abnormal situation. Stopping the machine when there is trouble forces awareness on everyone; visual control helps bring production weaknesses to the surface.

Another important TPS aspect - identifying 'root causes.' Example - suppose a machine stopped functioning. 1)Why did the machine stop? There was an overload and the fuse blew. 2)Why was there an overload? The bearing was not sufficiently lubricated. 3)Why was it not lubricated sufficiently? The lubrication pump was not pumping enough. 4)Why was it not pumping enough? The shaft was worn and rattling. 5)Why was the shaft worn out? There was no strainer attached and metal scrap got in. Repeating 'Why' five times like this can help uncover root problems and significantly improve operations.

Rearranging machines on the floor to establish a production flow eliminated the waste of storing parts and helped achieve 'one operator, many processes' - increasing efficiency 2X - 3X. The transition, while not smooth, was facilitated by the lack of function-oriented unions in Japan.
4633231
Dr. Jennie Hwang's second major book on lead-free electronics plays the ministerial role to its magisterial predecessor.  It is the facilitator, carrying us from the calm of the laboratory to the clamor of the factory floor, where theories and realities collide.  In the lead-free as in other worlds, implementation, not theory, ultimately determines survival.

The book follows the flow of factory implementation, moving from selecting the best approach, to choosing proper materials, to controlling the soldering operation, to concerns about compatibility, costs, and reliability.  The prelude is a reality check of present manufacturing practices.  Here Dr. Hwang shows us how the actual conditions of use for today's eutectic lead-tin solders, rather than theoretical arguments, justify the "drop-in" approach to lead-free replacements.

The key to manufacturing implementation is recognizing the interdependence of process decisions, to insure compatibility at every stage.  Solder selection summarizes some of the voluminous technical detail of Dr. Hwang's prior book, supplemented with side-by-side solder comparisons.

Mass reflow soldering and wave soldering comprise separate chapters, again starting from a solid base of "real-world production demands."  For mass reflow soldering, these include the difficulty of monitoring and controlling temperatures in a fast-moving environment.  Wave soldering is dismembered in detail. New hobgoblins here are dross, corrosion, turbulence, and compositional stability.  Again, case studies tie the text to factory-based data.

The open, bullet-point format of much of the material will make this a handy reference book, as well as a worthy supplement to its predecessor.  Dr. Hwang has enlisted her long industry experience, her understanding of solder manufacturing, and her sensitivity to the concerns of students in her lead-free training courses to present an exhaustive, normative, two-volume approach to lead-free technology and implementation.
3012070
With recent marketing of APS, CRM and other "intelligent" bolt-ons to ERP systems capturing the global attention of consultants, industrialists and researchers alike, this book provides a timely and comprehensive toolkit  for operational analysis in the age-old Make vs Buy debate.
We can see  Virgin's Richard Branson say "no" to manufacturing mostly relying on the  power of global brands. Alternatively, vast FMCGs companies like Procter  & Gamble tend towards overcapacity and many owned manufacturing  facilities worldwide. Ernst & Young (Supercharging Supply Chains ISBN  0471254371) suggest global optimisation of distribution networks (and watch  out for tax!). "Developing a Make vs Buy.." has less to say on the external  debate, but much to contribute to the practical assessment of your own  operations
Topics include: introduction, manufacturing business context,  strategic review, developing a make vs buy strategy, implementing &  maintaining a strategy, practical experiences, useful tools &  techniques, and next steps.
This 132 page book is concise, well presented  with illustrations, checklists, and references and should prove useful  supporting strategic product portfolio analysis/change projects.  It could  have been improved through provision of sidebar case-studies, and pointers  to more innovative research materials. Overall, well worth using, even in  support of mergers & acquisition prospect analysis.
3632015
Whether you use this as a bookshelf reference or a daily guide in either implementing or fine tuning your own PM program, the book is easy reading and provides a wealth of concepts, actual examples and sound advice.  I've had the opportunity to watch this program work and it's dynamite.  However, stepping up to this level and creating a new way of operation can be painful.  John Gross provides the hard earned experience and guidelines to make your effort more successful and help you avoid the mindfields of being on the cutting edge.  This is must reading for any plant manager, plant engineer or plant operations manager.  For those running warehouse operations, the concepts apply equally well for facility and equipment support.
4174492
This is an informative and engaging book that conveys a high level overview of independent film production.  The advice given is the type of advice you'd get if you had a friend "in the business" who was telling you everything they've learned about the craft.  It doesn't go into extraordinary detail, but contains much conventional wisdom.

The book I purchased was published in 2001, and while it was written at the cusp of the "digital age", the information related to the skill/craft/wisdom is relevant regardless of the advances in technology.  In short, the technological information is outdated (equipment, media, pricing examples).  If you can ignore references to tech circa 2001, I would recommend this book to anyone who needs a good introductory overview of independent film production. I found it easy to read and it helpded me to expand my understanding of the craft from "a guy and a camera" to "a full production cycle"
4916058
I've been working in process improvement the past 20 years at multiple levels from engineer on up through VP and most recently as a consultant, and on many occasions have seen initiatives fail not because of a lack of technical skill (that's rarely the case in my experience), but because the "human" focus was lacking.  McCarthy hits home in this book by giving readers a practical road map to follow for tapping into the people side of process improvement.

The people side of process improvement is becoming even more important as lean and six sigma move further into the transactional world (i.e. services, education, healthcare). Initially, when lean and six sigma was found only in the manufacturing industry, the human side of improvement wasn't as important as it is in the transactional world.

Much of the improvement in manufacturing comes from changing tooling, technology, and machines-the "hard" stuff that does what you tell it to do each and every time. There is no question that humans are involved in making the changes, but once a solution is put in place it is not as dependent on people making it work long term, unlike in the transactional world.

Little, if any, time is spent giving process improvement professionals insight into why people behave as they do.  This is an area that is sorely lacking in the process improvement literature McCarthy's book attempts to fill.  Anyone who has ever worked on a project that has failed because of a "people" issue will benefit from reading this book.  If you haven't worked on such a project, believe me, if you do process improvement work long enough the day will come.  Read this book before that day to save yourself a lot of heartache!
683583
Whether you're just learning to mix using a DAW or an experienced user, this book (along with the 2 DVDs in the series) provides incredible insights into how to make the most of your system to achieve better sounding, more professional mixes.

The author does a great job of bringing all of the concepts together in any easy-to-understand format and walks you through enhancing several actual mixes using simple, proven techniques. The coverage of the compressors is very detailed and well-illustrated (one of the best I've found), and the author does a great job of making the more difficult reverb and delay concepts easy to understand. Even more general concepts are covered, such as how to best organize a large mix and how to create your mixes in less time. A selection of the most common plugins of the various types are also detiled along with the sound qualities they provide.

The author's primary DAW is Cubase/Nuendo, so those users will get even more out of the book because they can directly apply the techniques and templates to their projects. That said, this is not a tutorial on DAWs. The author spends most of his time on understanding the principles and techniques, as opposed to how to use Cubase or Nuendo.

Pros - Well written. Excellent coverage of plugin techniques, enhancing the mix, and workflow. A variety of plugins are detailed (as opposed to some books which only show how to work with a specific vendor's offerings). Examples are practical and usable in most environments.

Cons - To get the most out of the book, you really need the two DVDs (<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Internal-Mixing-Tutorial-DVD-Vol-1/dp/B0012GXCFG/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Internal Mixing Tutorial DVD Vol. 1</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Internal-Mixing-Tutorial-DVD-Vol-2/dp/B0012H0BQI/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Internal Mixing Tutorial DVD Vol. 2</a>) in this series. It's not required to understand the material, but the chapters really are designed to compliment the DVDs rather than replace them. The DVDs can also be ordered as a set:&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Internal-Mixing-Tutorial-DVD-Vol-1-2-Bundle/dp/B0012GYT9E/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Internal Mixing Tutorial DVD Vol. 1&2 Bundle</a>.

Other Works - The author has a 3-DVD set on mastering:&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Audio-Mastering-with-PC-Workstations-Tutorial-DVD-Trilogy-Vol-1-3/dp/B0012H7GKC/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Audio Mastering with PC Workstations Tutorial DVD Trilogy Vol. 1-3</a>. An English version of the related book is currently in the works.
4613911
While it is clear you cannot learn everything you need to know about offshore wind farming from a book, this text does a great job of laying out the challenges and strategies required of successfully implementing an offshore wind farm.  The book's preface says it is aimed at consultants, financiers, engineers, and technicians in this industry.  Indeed, I think just about anybody who gets involved in this industry will learn something from these chapters.

First, this is not a political book that is pro or anti offshore wind farming.  The book is very practical, starting with the assumption that you are getting involved in the industry, so it discusses the mechanics.  Everything from the permit process (covering the US, UK, and Germany), project planning, program management, and technical hurdles required to install wind farms is covered.  I was impressed by the breadth of knowledge, and the relatively straightforward and simple explanations.  If you are intending to invest in a wind farm project, this book will teach you the right questions that you should be asking before you get out your checkbook.

Recommended reading for a unique industry that can be difficult to study when you just want straightforward facts free of argument.  This tome does an excellent job and is necessary reading for anybody who is investigating offshore wind farming.
1386942
Goldratt does a great job of putting together a fable that intertwines concrete lessons for managing a production operation with a story featuring interesting characters. However, while the book focuses on production operations, the techniques in his book may also be effective in resolving service oriented processes as well.
The key point to Goldratt's theory of constraints is the identification and dissolution of bottlenecks (constraints) in the system. However, lest you think this all there is to it, Goldratt goes into detail describing how to identify the constraint, how it impacts production, quality, and costs of operations. The book is well worth reading, and seems to suggest a Deming management method whereby the manager should constantly strive to improve quality, processes, and people management. I would recommend the serious reader also read Mary Walton's The Deming Management Method in addition to this book.
A similar book, worth reading in my opinion, that deals with the formation of teams to resolve constraints: The Five Dysfunctions of Teams (ISBN: 0787960756).
3254351
-Several great ideas for production tricks and location scouting! The included website has many useful forms and record planning paperwork which will save you a lot of time!

- Somewhat scarce on post production audio treatment, but if you are familiar with post production, the book is well worth the price for it's actual production and pre-planning sections!

-Was glad I read the book. Great tips on keeping production moving and making the most of your time.
281685
A great read for all levels of producers. Even if you don't read the whole thing and just skim though when you need a specific question answered, its still completely worth the money.