Basic Library of Books for Manufacturing, Materials, and Logistics People 

This list was compiled by Chris Gray.
Chris is a Sr. Partner of Partners for Excellence and President of Gray Research.

Use the Order Now links below to order through Amazon.  

Resource Planning/Lean Enterprise Topics
21st Century Manufacturing. Tom Gunn. Harper Business. Order Now!

A Study of the Toyota Production System. Shigeo Shingo.

Bills of Material. Structured for Excellence. Dave Garwood. Dogwood Publishing. The rest of what you wanted to know about bills of material from the pioneer in the field of bill of material structuring. Order Now!

Creating Continuous Flow.  Mike Rother and Rick Harris.  How to create real, not fake, flow through your processes.  Excellent material in an easy to read, workbook like format.  Order Now!

Creating Mixed Model Value Streams.  Kevin J. Duggan.  Practical lean techniques for building to demand.  Highly recommended.  Order Now!  

Designing and Managing the Supply Chain  David Simchi-Levi, Philip Kaminsky, Edith Simchi-Levi 2000, Irwin McGraw-Hill.  Order Now!

ERP: Making It Happen. Tom Wallace and Mike Kremzar.  John Wiley and Sons. An excellent overview of implementation issues and how to overcome them. Order Now!

Focus Forecasting. Bernard Smith. B. T. Smith and Associates. The original book on the subject. Excellent overview.  Order Now!

Focus Forecasting and DRP. Bernard Smith. B. T. Smith and Associates. Better than the original: includes new original material and 15 years of additional experience in making Focus Forecasting work. Order Now!

In the Age of the Real Time Enterprise. Tom Gunn. John Wiley and Sons. Order Now!

Introduction to Supply Chain Management  Robert B. Handfield and Ernest L. Nichols, Jr. 1999, Prentice-Hall.  Order Now! 

Inventory Record Accuracy. Roger Brooks/Larry Wilson. John Wiley and Sons. How to get the inventory records accurate in the minimum amount of time. Order Now!

Kanban. Just-in-Time at Toyota. Japan Management Association

Lean Production Simplified. Pascal Dennis. An excellent introduction to Lean concepts.

Lean Lexicon.  Chet Marchwinski and John Shook.  A graphical glossary for Lean Thinkers.  Order Now!

Lean Thinking.  Jim Womack and Dan Jones.  The best introductory book on the subject of Lean Manufacturing.  Order Now!

Learning to See.  Mike Rother and John Shook.  Value stream mapping to add value and eliminate waste.  Excellent material in an easy to read, workbook like format.  Order Now!

Making Materials Flow. Rick Harris, Chris Harris, and Earl Wilson. Designing material routes for lean production.Excellent material in an easy to read, workbook like format.  Order from the Lean Enterprise Institute: http://www.lean.org/.  

Managing Supplier Quality. How to Develop Customer/Supplier Partnerships That Work. Roger Hale, Ronald Koval, Tim Sehnert, Donald Carlton. Monochrome Press. Hardcover. Solutions to some of the toughest supplier situations you'll ever face. Written for those trying to solve problems with suppliers, the book has worksheets and evaluation forms that you can use to start work in this area. Order Now!

Manufacturing Data Structures. Jerry Clement/John Sari/Andy Coldrick. John Wiley and Sons. Everything you always wanted to know about bills of material and routings. Order Now!

Master Scheduling in the 21st Century.  Tom Wallace and Bob Stahl. Accomplishes two important tasks.  First it presents the fundamentals of Master Scheduling in a clear, concise, and complete manner.  It's simple and easy to understand.  Second it explains the relationship between master scheduling and supply chain management, lean manufacturing and efficient consumer response.  It's contemporary and up-to-date.  Foreword and Lean Manufacturing Appendix by Chris Gray.  Highly recommended.  Order Now!

Master Scheduling.  John Proud. John Wiley and Sons. An in-depth work on master production scheduling. Excellent book. Order Now!

MRP II: Unlocking America's Productivity Potential. Oliver Wight. John Wiley and Sons. Explains the concepts of MRP II from a management perspective. The best available overview of MRP II usage even 17 years after the author's death. Order Now!

Production and Inventory Management in the Computer Age. Oliver Wight. John Wiley and Sons. The classic. Explains, in Ollie's simple, understandable style, the basic elements of MRP II. Out of print - check with Amazon.

The Oliver Wight ABCD Checklist for Operational Excellence.  Oliver Wight Staff. John Wiley and Sons.  Detailed Class A Checklist.  Order Now!

Orlicky's Material Requirements Planning. Joe Orlicky/George Plossl. McGraw Hill. Order Now!

Orchestrating Success.  Dick Ling/Walter Goddard. John Wiley and Sons. The first book on the subject of sales and operations planning from the pioneer in the field (Ling). Order Now!

The MRP II Standard System. Chris Gray/Darryl Landvater. John Wiley and Sons. Defines the core functions that must be present in an MRP II system. Written in an understandable style accessible to non software people. Order Now!

The Right Choice.  Chris Gray. John Wiley and Sons. How to evaluate and select software and be confident of your choice.  Out of print.  Contact the author.  

Sales & Operations Planning - The How-to-Handbook.  Tom Wallace. T. F. Wallace & Company.  Easy to read and understand explanation of this subject - with tips on implementing and operating effectively.  Highly recommended.  Order Now!

Sales Forecasting - A New Approach.  Tom Wallace and Bob Stahl.  How to forecast less, not more; emphasize teamwork, not formulas; focus on process improvement, not forecast "accuracy".  Order Now!

Seeing the Whole.  Dan Jones and Jim Womack.  Value stream mapping to add value and eliminate waste - across an entire Lean Enterprise.  Excellent material in an easy to read, workbook like format.  Order from the Lean Enterprise Institute: http://www.lean.org/.  

The New Manufacturing Challenge. Techniques for Continuous Improvement. Kiyoshi Suzaki.

Toyota Production System. Yasuhiro Monden. The definitive study of TPS.

Toyota Production System. Beyond Large-Scale Production.  Taiichi Ohno.  The Toyota Production System from the “Father of TPS”.  

Value Stream Management.  Don Tapping, Tom Luyster and Tom Shuker.

World Class Production and Inventory Management. Darryl Landvater. John Wiley and Sons. Order Now!

NEW MANUFACTURING METRICS
Measure Up! Richard L. Lynch & Kelvin F. Cross. Blackwell. Practical examples, tools, and worksheets to custom tailor new performance measurements for your organization. The best book available on the subject of performance measurement. Order Now!

It's Not Luck. Eliyahu M. Goldratt. An outstanding novel that illustrates, in an entertaining manner, how traditional performance measurements can motivate the wrong actions. Order Now!

Relevance Lost. The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting. H. Thomas Johnson and Robert S. Kaplan. Harvard Business School Press. Illustrates why modern corporations must reexamine their existing practices and redesign management accounting systems.  Order Now!

IMPROVING LOGISTICS FOR THE CUSTOMER'S BENEFIT (High Level)
Teaching the Elephant to Dance. James Belasco. Plume. Paper. A practical, hands on guide to creating change. The best book available on the subject of creating a Vision in the organization. Order Now!

Flight of the Buffalo. Soaring to Excellence, Learning to Let Employees Lead. James A. Belasco & Ralph C. Stayer. Warner Books. A model for a highly flexible organization that can learn and grow while responding to changing circumstances. Order Now!

The Customer Driven Company. Moving from Talk to Action. Richard C. Whiteley. Addison-Wesley. A step-by-step program for implementing, measuring, and rewarding both product and service excellence that leads to true customer loyalty. Order Now!

WORLD CLASS CULTURE
On Becoming a Leader. Warren Bennis. Addison-Wesley. The Hows of Leadership: How people become leaders, how they lead, and how organizations either encourage or stifle potential leaders. Order Now!

Leadership is an Art. Max DePree. Dell. Not a science or a discipline, leadership is an art: as such it must be felt, experienced, created. Order Now!

The Great Game of Business. Jack Stack. Doubleday. Hardcover. How to make business a game that all your people can play, and that taps into the universal desire to win and makes that desire a powerful competitive force. A great book based on a real experience. Order Now!

Recognition Redefined. Roger Hale & Rita Maehling. Monochrome Press. Hardcover. A practitioner's guide to the principles of positive reinforcement. Shows how to build a multidimensional recognition program that inspires, motivates, and achieves results. The best book ever published on the subject. Order Now!

Getting to Yes.  Roger Fisher, William Ury and Bruce Patton.  Penguin.  A straightforward, universally applicable method for negotiating personal and professional disputes without getting taken – and without getting angry.  Order Now!

Getting Together.  Roger Fisher and Scott Brown.  Followup to Getting to Yes. Order Now!

Getting Past No.  William Ury.  .  Followup to Getting to Yes. Order Now!