New Books

Scenario-Driven Planning: Learning to Manage Strategic Uncertainty
Scenario-Driven Planning (SDP) is an emerging new technology for management design that empowers organizations to address the various uncertainties that beset them. Written for practicing managers and consultants distrustful of quick fixes, as well as for academics in the field, this book begins by discussing the present business malaise of developed economies and follows with a presentation of the historical antecedents of SDP. It then develops a modern treatment of the scenario approach, starting with its origins, and proceeding with graduated base studies (simple applications first, followed by standard applications), and finally moves on to discussing the theoretical issues and merging trends that underlie the scenario approach.

Authors Nicholas C. Georgantzas and William Acar enumerate the cognitive biases and other obstacles to the management of strategic uncertainty. They present a method that goes beyond the enumeration of judgmental "environmental" scenarios and introduce simple as well as more sophisticated methods for computing stategic decision scenarios. Referred to as Comprehensive Situation Mapping (CSM), this analytical approach to strategic planning allows managerial thinking to soar past the bureaucratic side of planning in order to take advantage of creative dialects. Due to its computational and dialectic features, the CSM approach can be used by astute corporate leaders as an opportunity for promoting organizational learning.
Published by Quorum Books.

Engineering Your Future
This book is designed to help the recent engineering graduate launch a successful career.

Today's engineering school graduates emerge from college with little understanding of everyday business and how to build a career in the harsh, highly competitive business climate of the 1990s. Engineering Your Future provides the basic, practical information about everyday business challenges and the management concepts they need to manage a successful career. Down-to-earth advice and techniques are offered for:

  • Managing a successful career;
  • Developing effective communications skills;
  • Project management from planning to monitoring and control;
  • Decision making, benefit-cost analysis, and basic accounting;
  • Making legal and ethical choices.

    The author, Dr. Stuart G. Walesh, is a management and engineering consultant and a member of the faculty of the College of Engineering at Valparaiso University in Indiana. With more than 20 years of hands-on management experience, he has served as a project manager, department head, discipline manager, marketer and dean of an engineering college.
    Published by Prentice Hall.

    Engineering Process Improvement Series
    This series of four books focuses on key innovations in process improvement and quality engineering.
  • "Randall's Practical Guide to ISO 9000: Implementation, Registration and Beyond," by Richard C. Randall, covers the new ISO 9000:1994 standards, provides detailed descriptions of all sections of ISO 9000, and offers guidance on implementing these standards in business practices. The book is filled with real-world examples and insightful tips on making the certification process go smoothly.

  • "Quality Function Deployment: How to Make QFD Work For You," by Lou Cohen, provides an in-depth examination of QFD, a structured planning process that systematically incorporates the voice of the customer into product design and development. In addition to offering a detailed explanation of the House of Quality, the most commonly used QFD matrix that relates customer needs to technical solutions, the book explores the many layers of matrices that can contribute to every phase of product development and manufacturing.

  • "Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award: A Yardstick for Quality Growth," by Maureen S. Heaphy and Gregory F. Gruska, is a practical guide to this increasingly prominent means of benchmarking, improving and recognizing quality efforts. The book offers comprehensive coverage of the MBNQA criteria and a comparison with the ISO 9000:1994 standards. In addition, it includes a case study of a 1994 Baldrige Award application that illustrates the entire application process. The book also offers practical advice on using the criteria for self improvement, tips on the application process, and common mistakes to avoid.

  • "Changing the Way We Change: Gaining Control of Major Operational Change," by Jeanenne LaMarsh, helps organizations develop the capacity for effective change that will result in significant improvements in efficiency and quality. Using a case study of a manufacturing organization's challenge to change its engineering processes, it provides in-depth information on the process of change, the people it affects, and the tools that facilitate implementation.
    Published by Addison-Wesley.
    The Future Focused Organization
    Adapting to the changing business climate can mean continued success for a business - not adapting can mean failure to even the best and brightest of corporations. In The Future Focused Organization: Complete Organizational Alignment for Breakthrough Results, authors Terence T. Burton and John W. Moran show executives how to create and manage change in their business.

    This book is an end-to-end guide to refocusing the entire organization on a positive, pro-active vision of the future, from re-engineering the organization to anticipating tomorrow's customer expectations. Based on the Future Focused Organization model, this book goes beyond current management materials and focuses on a new approach that results in an organization that adapts to changes in the marketplace continuously and successfully.
    Published by Prentice Hall.

    Designing a Distribution Network To Address Today's Challenges
    Shipping product to the right place, at the right time, in the right quantity is dependent on having the correct distribution network. This 22-page booklet will help the reader understand the factors that define the correct distribution network and the approach to design this correct distribution network. The booklet addresses:
  • 14 factors influencing distribution today;
  • the value of strategic planning;
  • site selection guidelines; and
  • foreign trade zones.
    Published by Tompkins Associates Inc.
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