Industry Actions Books

This is a classic for anyone interested in the history of logging in the Pacific Northwest. Together with Andrews other companion book, "This Was Sawmilling" the reader will gain a great understanding how trees were harvest, transported to mills and converted into the resources which built this Country. There's hundreds of wonderful photos from the woods along with many contraptions which loggers created to make their tasks either easier or more likely, more productive. Can you imagine a raft 1000 feet long and 30 feet wide and deep made out of logs laced together with huge chains? These structures containing millions of board feet of trees would be created in the far Northwest and floated down the coast to San Diego, CA and further. There's photos in the book. There's a great photo of a logger standing on the top of a tree hundreds of feet in the air just after he has completed preparation for high-lead logging. The book is separated into geographic regions from British Columbia and each of the States of the Northwest. It has numerous poems written about loggers. (Please don't call them lumber-jacks. I never heard a man who works in the woods called a lumber-jack all my years going up in Oregon. Yet a recent TV show about the worlds most dangerous jobs constantly referred to them a lumber-jacks.) Distraction of this classic includes the lack of a table of contents, index, and the disconnect between the photos and the stories. Which is to be expected. Andrews rarely had photos of the people in the stories and vice versa. Why this short-comings. Superior Publishing printed many of these books by folks who simply wanted to document the hard work of others. Regardless whether it was logging, railroading, or shipping they were willing to publish the books. Thank goodness they did or we'd never have had these classics. If you have an interest in the history of logging this book will be a great addition to your collection.

Refreshingly, this book deals with grass roots activist campaigns, as opposed to conventional corporate marketing. However, the impassioned amateurs it intends to teach may need persistence to penetrate its meandering organizational structure, which is perhaps more hampered than helped by the "100 steps" format. Author Chris Rose offers solid information on organizing campaigns and on communication strategies, but clustering it more tightly might have provided greater utility. Rose, a veteran Greenpeace activist, offers excellent examples from environmental campaigns. Given his expertise, that is understandably the main issue discussed in the book. The information on media management is likewise solid, if somewhat general for today's diverse media market, particularly in listing media likes and dislikes. The marketing information is appropriately geared for beginners, except for the complex diagrams on motivational characteristics and issue mapping. If you seek inspiration and concrete tactics for transforming your ideas into action and public policy, we find that this manual is a good place to start.

This book is an interesting and engrossing read. I'm not certain that younger readers (for which the cover, in particular, seems to be aimed)will "get" it, but the action makes for quite a page-turner, and the subject matter is very thought provoking. The author includes some anti-American and anti-religion undertones which I find a bit annoying, and although she does explain that the cocaine extraction process is different from the coca tea itself, the reader is left cheering for the humble coca farmers. Once again, I hope youthful readers make the distinctions, and that the "bad guy" is cocaine use and not necessarily the U.S. In any case, this book could be a great read-aloud, and I'm looking forward to the sequel.

Phillips always seems to provide a wonderful combination of practical application, real world experience, and tested theory; this book is no exception. Very helpful, both as a primary or adjunct course text.

The Handbook is ideal for a machinist, mechanical engineer or anyone else who makes a living in metalworking. It concisely spans the field. Straightforwardly written. Many topics are explained. From common sheet metal practices to the latest machine tools.

Technology also figures prominently elsewhere in the book. There is a chapter on computer aided design and manufacturing. It explains the essence of software packages in this arena. With tables of CAD providers, and vendors who offer extensive component libraries. While you could certainly use a CAD package to design your own custom parts, it may be more cost effective to see if an existing library has what you need.

Another chapter covers solid freeform production. Using methods like electron beam melting or selective laser sintering. Or 3D printing, where a solid part is catalysed out of a special liquid. All this might sound exotic to some of you. But it's worthwhile to keep informed of such techniques.

The book's essays study an often cruel paradox. Why do some developing countries with valuable natural resources descend into civil war? The answers are manifold, with the foremost amongst these being described here.

A prominent factor is that the resources give something to fight over. Be these diamonds, opium or oil. Mix this with the presence of different regional or ethnic groups. Then add a propensity for corruption in the central government, and have that government dominated by one group. Often, all this leads to the government's functionaries siphoning off much of the wealth derived from the resources. Leading perhaps to civil war.

The essays explore how these factors have played out in various countries; mostly in Africa. A depressing read. What is striking is how often the central government proves so reluctant to even spend some money for minimal development across all the country's regions. It's not so much that corruption exists, but the sheer level of corruption, that impoverishes the entire country.

This is an excellent collection on affirmative action. Rather than merely rehash old debates, the editors have assembled a collection that sheds important light upon the ways in which affirmative action has been understood and represented throughout the mass media and popular culture. The contributors agree that the kinds of reactions that are prompted by affirmative action need to be understood within a broader context of contemporary racial relations in the United States, and with the understanding that representations of racial matters have always been highly charged, contested, and problematic in the mass media.

The author's premise that the general public is given to mass swings from seeking private gain to seeking public benefit, both driven by disappointment, is interesting; but the argument is never quite proven. For starters, there is offered no empirical evidence that this occurs. (The only historical review given is in support of the narrower point that a growing level of wealth generates disappointment in various affected classes.) Secondly, the explanations for why such swings *might* happen, or be expected to happen, never quite explain why these swings would happen *en masse*.

Nevertheless, I recommend reading this book -- it briefly introduces a range of provoking ideas. These include: that potential for disappointment varies by type of good, that there are multiple responses to disappointment (including postponing response by ignoring problems or internalizing dissatisfaction), that consumers do not have perfect knowledge nor only a single set of preferences, that "comfort is the enemy of pleasure," that public involvement could disappoint for providing too much *or* too little opportunity for participation.

The book is more marketing/psychology than economics, but its arguments could help explain, for instance, our modern shift to disposible goods and possible methods for understanding voters by understanding second-order volitions. It gets you thinking, even if the primary argument of the book is less than convincing.

The author (not to be confused with astronaut James McDivitt) has provided an information-packed catalogue of small-mining equipment. Every page has a photo of some item along with a description of it, along with the company which provides it and the contact information for that manufacturer or dealer.

The chapters of the book include prospecting and surveying equipment, underground mining, mineral processing, haulage and transport, safety equipment, and general-purpose equipment. It is hoped that there will be a new edition of this book.

I recently read two books written by Phillip Slater. This one and A New Strategy for Continuous Improvement. In both, Slater's primary focus is on what to do and how to do it. He thinks sequentially and, in this volume, suggests seven actions for materials resource planning (MRO) and indirect inventory reduction. There are no head-snapping revelations, nor does Slater claim to offer.

The format of this book allows the reader to record in designated areas within the narrative her or his responses when completing a series of exercises. For example, on page 29, Slater asks his reader to identify how the five myths of inventory reduction may be impacting her or his organization's inventory reduction efforts. That is an excellent issue to address and is relevant to the given context, so it will generate more useful information than will the request on page 49 when Slater asks his reader to list "issues" (any kind?) concerning her or his company, a location/division, and the date(s) to which the issues refer. The precision and clarity of exercise design vary throughout the narrative.

Although this is a book that an individual can read and benefit from, its greatest value will be derived (in my opinion) only if several members of a team read it, complete the exercises, and then share their responses. The ultimate objective should be a single document that can then serve as a game plan when the team proceeds to implementation ("taking action"), which Slater discusses in the final chapter. The material is sound and carefully organized. The exercises will permit readers to interact with the material in an orderly way. To accommodate inevitable revisions, I suggest that the exercises be completed with a #2 pencil, one with a sturdy eraser.

I have rated this book higher than his other book, A New Strategy for Continuous Improvement, because it has more substance but again wish he had developed his core concepts in much greater depth (the narrative is only 151 pages in length, with wide spacing between paragraphs, followed by four appendices) and had he included several real-world (as opposed to hypothetical) examples to illustrate some of his key points. As is, this is a hybrid volume (part "manual" as he frequently refers to it, part workbook) that provides a basic introduction to an important business subject. If and when revised for a second edition, this document could and should offer more substance (i.e. value), given its cost of purchase.

Those in need of broader and deeper coverage of inventory management are urged to check out David J. Piasecki's Inventory Accuracy: People, Processes, & Technology, Best Practice in Inventory Management (Second Edition), Inventory Management and Production Planning and Scheduling (3rd Edition) co-authored by Edward A. Silver, David F. Pyke, and Rein Peterson, and Paul Bernard's Integrated Inventory Management.