Manufacturing Reviews

The Measurement Nightmare: How the Theory of Constraints Can Resolve Conflicting Strategies, Policies, and Measures (St. Lucie Press/Apics Series on Constraints Management,)

Published in Library Binding by CRC (1999-12-22)

Author: Debra Smith

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Debra Smith

Helpful Votes: 0 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2006-05-15

Debra knows and applies TOC as well as anyone including Goldratt. This book is still a key part to understanding TOC.

Great TOC book

Helpful Votes: 0 out of 8 total.
Review Date: 2004-04-12

Debra has done a nice job with this book. I would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about Theory of Constraints.

Good book, but stack it with others...

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2005-10-21

This is a grate book that explains how measurment indicators might confuse management, and make mistakes that really happen in buissness. In states several measurment indicators based on TOC that help in understanding what should be done in the company.

Very good book, but if you want to learn about TOC, you should stack it with other TOC books.

Getting to the core of the problem

Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2003-05-22

The book focusses on the root problem behind all those dysfunctional metrics around us. It explains very clearly (also for people not trained in financial jargon) how the wrong focus on the wrong metrics in the top of the organization can have impact on the complete organization and may impact negatively the quality of decisions throughout the company.

Very much recommended!

Great Material - Difficult Read

Helpful Votes: 4 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2004-02-23

This is an excellent book if you are serious about TOC. It covers the basic how-to subjects currently in the liturature, and goes into new territory showing how to reconcile Management/Throughput Accounting with GAAP Acounting. Despite the great material I have two complaints: 1) The book is difficult to read due to the small font and wordy style 2) The book fails to recognize the existance of Lean Manufacturing and Six-Sigma tools that could break the dilemia presented about sprint capacity and buffer size. The second issue is one that any experience practitioner of Lean/6-sigma will easily recognise and correct.

Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation

Published in Paperback by Wiley (1992-01-15)

Author: K. Eric Drexler

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An astonishing tour de force.

Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-04-16

It is rare to see an entire new field of study arise in science and engineering. It is even rarer to see it explored so lucidly by a single mind. "Nanosystems" is an astonishing tour de force.

This book is not light weight. It is not going to be readable for people who do not already have a substantial background in the sciences. It is an in depth and extremely careful analysis of the possibility of the creation of molecular machines and the fundamental physical limits that technology faces. The pages are packed with well described calculations and everything is fully footnoted and referenced.

Some people have criticized Drexler's vision, but is rare that the critics have actually read his work. In almost every case, he has already anticipated and discussed their objections in extraordinary detail. It is, in fact, amazing to see all the problems he has anticipated and analyzed, in depth and with great care.

If you are serious about your interest in nanotechnology, you must read this book. It will take you quite some time, but the information you will gain is invaluable, and much of it is available nowhere else.

My only criticism is that it is long past time for a new edition -- much has been learned in the last 15 years and it would be valuable to have it all collected in one place.

Good book

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2006-03-19

I think that this book clarifies all the aspects concerning Nanosystems, wrote by Mr. Nanotechnology: what is, how it is viewed, its possibilities.

I recommend for every one that wanna go inside the nanosystem's world.

A rare Fifth Star simply for its place in history.

Helpful Votes: 55 out of 58 total.
Review Date: 2000-05-22

Finally we may play with the "building blocks of matter" we've been hearing so much about. Here is an instruction manual, detailing the Elements, and their Interactions, while at the same time suggesting possible Design Models for construcion.

Curious about the subject?
Start with Drexler's Engines of Creation, instead. Maybe some other collections of theoretical applications to whet your appetite. Come back to this when you begin to see a bigger picture.

Know some, want to know more?
Definately read. But be warned, it is quite techincal when it is not being necessarily vague. This is a halmark. The basis of this book was Drexler's thesis for his doctorate in Molecular Nanotechnology, the first awarded (MIT 1991, I believe).

Serious about the topic?
You already have access to a copy...or should.

You might very well be able to download significant portions from Foresight's website (it's an org.anization, not a com.mercial); but I would suggest supporting them with at least the price of the book. They seem to be committed to developing this Potential responsibly.

Excellent Resource for Molecular Nanotechnology

Helpful Votes: 9 out of 11 total.
Review Date: 2003-12-02

This book is highly technical and assumes the reader's familiarity with physics, chemistry and the like. It was worth studying. I highly recommend everyone reading this book as the subject matter is inspiring. This book describes the inner mechanics of our (hopefully not too distant) future.

Thank You

Helpful Votes: 9 out of 29 total.
Review Date: 2000-10-19

Dr. Drexler, I carefully studied your book for the first time in February 2000. I studied it once again in August. I now frequently refer to the notes I have made in my copy of your book.

Your book is an excellent guide. Thank you for inviting me to the field of nanotechnology.

Sincerely,

Kenneth L. Buckingham, Founder Tiny Technology, Inc.

Object-Process Methodology

Published in Hardcover by Springer (2002-08-26)

Author: Dov Dori

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Fascinating methodology of simplicity and usefulness

Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2003-01-19

I have been fascinated by the simplicity and usefulness of the
Object-Process Methodology paradigm and approach expressed in the book. As a
researcher in Science Education I have been grappling with how to represent
complex, technology-enhanced educational systems that involve humans,
processes and educational artifacts. OPM and the OPCAT software enclosed
were very instrumental in enabling me to model and represent the "big
picture" of educational systems I developed. With OPM I was then able to
gradually refine portions of the system to any desired level of detail.
The applicability of OPM to IT-intensive educational systems is a testimony
to the generic nature of the methodology and to the fact that it is useful
in so many domains. The combination of a single simple graphical model that
generates natural language on the fly is really unique and valuable. I
wholeheartedly recommend the book to anyone interested in modeling complex
systems, be they of technological, economical, or social nature. The method
is straightforward, easy to learn even for non IT-professionals, and most
rewarding in terms of the quality and clarity of the resulting graphical and
textual model.

Object-Process Methodology (OPM)

Helpful Votes: 4 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2003-02-03

This book describes how Object-Process Methodology (OPM) CASE can be used as a tool for generating complete system intent specifications by graphical object diagrams, precise semantic and syntactic language, and intuitive symbols, definitions and structures. As systems have become more complex, a prevalent problem in systems development has been the number of accruing errors. These errors can cause catastrophic failure in the worst-case in addition to intolerable schedule delays and cost overruns. Introducing errors as well as difficulty finding and successfully correcting them occurs because of the lack of proper analysis and design tools for complex system specifications. OPM has the attributes to mitigate against the possibility of system failure, providing comprehensive visibility for better schedule and cost control in product development. It enhances reuse of system modules, processes and software routines in different contexts, while reducing the chance of errors. OPM automatically generates intent specifications that are readily understood by both customers and product team members and are translatable to machine control subsystems. OPM is a holistic systems paradigm that extends the Object-Oriented (OO) paradigm and overcomes its major shortcomings by integrating system structure and behavior in a single integrated graphic and natural language model. OPM successfully tackles the task of development and lifecycle management of systems, products and projects. OPM is a significant extension of and a major departure from the OO approach. It incorporates the system static-structural and dynamic-procedural aspects into a single, unified model. Presented as a concise visual formalism by a set of Object-Process Diagrams (OPD set), it is automatically translated into a set of Object-Process Language (OPL) script, a subset of natural English. At the basis of the OPM philosophy is the observation that to faithfully and naturally analyze and design systems in any domain, processes, like objects, should be considered as stand-alone "things" (entities) that are not necessarily encapsulated within objects. This detachment and de-coupling of processes from objects emphasizes the duality and complementarity of objects and processes, and opens the door for structure-behavior unification. At any point in time, objects exist with some structure and state. This is the static aspect of the system. Processes affect objects by changing their states. This is the dynamic aspect of the system. System complexity is managed through a number of graphical scaling options: zooming into and out of processes, unfolding and folding objects, and expressing or suppressing object states. These mechanisms provide for selectively detailing a subset of things while still maintaining the high-level context of the details.

OPM provides a new framework for specifying design intents and capturing the complexity of hardware and software interaction. Through OPL, it is possible to translate the process into a machine executable code. In addition, OPM can capture the dynamic behavior of the hardware attributes and software states in a single integrated graphical and textual language that is understandable by domain experts who have no programming experience. These traits of OPM ease the development effort for evaluating the system reliability during the design stages. Simulation and testing protocols can be automatically generated though future extensions of OPM to reduce lengthy system verification efforts.
The main benefit of OPM is its ability to identify system objects, processes, and the relationships among them in a structured way. The resulting OPD set becomes an excellent framework for identifying how to implement structural and procedural improvements. The resulting OPL script provides a well-defined set of existing and future specifications for the system. The ability to freely switch from text to graphics and back is of great value to understanding the system as a whole with a single graphic and textual model, without the need to consult various models and carry out mental transformation among these various models.
Based on my personal experience, the following points highlight the benefits OPM can bring to the particular projects described in this paper.
1. OPM is an excellent way to represent daily activities, products, processes and other complex things
2. OPM has allowed representing the complete system with its various aspects in a single model. The model specifies the systems function, structure and behavior aspects without sacrificing clarity.
3. OPM can be used as a common language to exchange design among members of a team.
4. Since OPM design is visual and textual at the same time, it is easy to explain the design.
5. OPL is very easy to generate from OPD
6. OPM will be a good tool for documenting the existing processes and as ISO documentation.

OPM is an Excellent Methodology

Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2005-04-29

I have used many methodologies over my career. Most of them are based around the object-oriented and structured design paradigms. I found out about OPM quite by accident about a year ago. I've been using it ever since. I have used it to model both hardware and software systems, as well as for business process modeling. It is an excellent methodology and I recommend it for anyone developing any kind of system.

One of the nice things about OPM is that it is easy: I was able to get a team "up-and-running" with the methodology in less than an hour of teaching them some basic concepts (try doing that with UML). Another feature is that you can use this for any type of project; you are not locked into a structured or object-oriented mindset like structured analysis or UML. OPM can handle both types of concepts with ease.

Finally, this methodology is fast. It is just easier and more intuitive to model in an OPM fashion. I've also found that others can comprehend the OPM models better than other methodologies too.

I used to be a UML advocate until I found OPM. I have found concepts that are difficult to model in UML are quite easy to model in OPM. It is just more flexible.

The book is really good by the way. It is very complete and gives plenty of good exammples. I congratulate Dov Dori and his team for providing something that all engineering disciplines can use to design their systems.

The way modeling ought to work

Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2003-08-11

OPM is a methodology for modeling systems, technical as well as any other system. In the techical world it compares with UML. OPM is designed with consistant and simple notations, uses simple rules that when combined can be used to model any system (real or informational) to any level of complexity that is desired by the system architect. Also, it integrates object modeling and process modeling in one diagram (although you can still keep them separate if you wanted).

UML uses complex rules to model complex systems, something that is very difficult to make happen, therefore it is very difficult to learn and use. OPM uses simple rules and consistant notations to model complex systems. After simple introductions to the methology, we have been able to start using it in our organization. More powerful and far simpler then UML. The way UML should have been done long time ago.

OPM: Finally a universal tool for system architects

Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2003-01-31

There is an eternal debate between system designers
and architects of software, products and large systems:
Is it ever possible to show structure (the arrangement
of objects) and system behavior (over time) in the same
representation? Dov Dori's book shows convincingly that it can
be done. Particularly powerful is the duality between
graphical system representation and natural language.
Also, the CD-ROM with OPCAT software allows one to follow
the examples in the book and apply OPM directly to a project.
The book is clearly written and will appeal to engineers,
computer scientists and software developers. A refreshing
contrast to the traditional way of looking a object-centered
systems architecting. This begs for more ... in terms of
connecting OPM to other tools such as Design Structure Matrices,
but also for representing highly complex systems over >2 levels
of decomposition.

The Papermaker's Companion: The Ultimate Guide to Making And Using Handmade Paper

Published in Paperback by Storey Publishing, LLC (2000-05-15)

Author: Helen Hiebert

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Usefull and interesting

Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-10-03

This book approaches paper making in a way that is so simple anyone can manage it. It explains the process in a readable way and inserts interesting bits of history and background on the way.

informative and covers basics

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2008-03-05

book is well written and covers all the basics pretty well. onecan get stqrted making paper by following guidelines in this book. addresses most needs and covers method well.

Excellent for beginners and beyond

Helpful Votes: 10 out of 10 total.
Review Date: 2007-01-17

Finally, I found a book that isn't about pretty pictures and way out there techniques. This book is about making paper. Helen gives you all the nuances necessary to make paper on your own. This is a comprehensive, information-packed book that is THE must-have for any beginner or even intermediate. Too many books show us beautiful photos of great art work but neglect to give us those finer details that would make our efforts a success. This book shows you how to succeed.

making paper

Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2007-12-21

This is a comprehensive little book for those who want to learn about making paper! The title says it all. It is pretty clear; both in its instructions as well as detailing the material needed. It can guide you through something simple that will leave you with a piece of paper so you can say "I did it" and its not for me. Or, help you set up a full studio so you can really get into making paper for art, for gift giving, for writing, for what ever purpose. If the latter becomes your passion, then you will probably have to move on to something more detailed for expanding your craft. This is a nice, basic beginner book, although not a "papermaking for dummies" level. Read it through, figure out where you want to start, and give it a try!

Useful, basic guide

Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2007-05-22

I checked the Papermaker's Companion out of the library just for some basic information about paper making. I found myself referring to it so often that I renewed the loan. And again. Finally, I broke down and bought my own copy. The recipes and instructions are clear and fairly comprehensive. The book contains at least a basic explanation of everything from using recycled paper to making your own pulp from plants and leaves. The projects are interesting and clearly explained. This is a good reference book for experienced paper makers and a good beginner's guide for those just starting out. Although it does contain a few projects for kids, this book is more appropriate for older teens and adults.

Practical Lean Accounting: A Proven System for Measuring and Managing the Lean Enterpise

Published in Paperback by Productivity Press (2003-12-19)

Authors: Brian H. Maskell and Bruce Baggaley

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it really helps

Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-03-29

Well structured and very clear concepts, It help me to have a deep understanding of how to develop a value stream mapping. I really recommend it.

Did your Lean Initiative Stall? Read this book.

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2008-05-12

I've seen it (and lived it) multiple times. An Exec kicks off a Lean Initiative and the company creates a Lean Enterprise. At first, its all about training, Kaizen Blitz, 5S, prototype cells and Kanbans. The focus is about 95% shop floor processes. But after a while, the program starts to stall. Folks start seeing two sets of rules (traditional MRP and Lean), but none of the traditional goes away. So Lean start sounding and feeling like just a bunch of extra paperwork and steps without any obvious benefit to those who "live it" every day. In the end, the program fails or the Lean Enterprise is reorganized to try again, usually with similar results. This book clearly explains what is happening. It also provides a different perspective to the initial Lean implementation strategies that will help pull the organization through that first big stalling out and propel the initiative into true effectiveness. A "must read" book for anyone that is or is going to be dealing with a fledgling Lean initiative.

Convert your accounting methods

Helpful Votes: 4 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2006-03-08

Best book on how to get your accoutning function to look at, use and make use of lean costing which really makes your lean projects work.

Who' Counting & Practical Lean Accounting: 1+1>2

Helpful Votes: 6 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2007-07-16

"Who's Counting" and "Practical Lean Accounting" are two great books on lean accounting. I wondered some time ago, which one to read and I am glad that I could not decide, so I bought and read them both. They complement each other extremely well and each one conveys the lessons of lean accounting from a different angle.

"Practical Lean Accounting" is a well structured textbook, approaching lean accounting in a systemized way. Starting from straight-forward shop-floor measurements, like the day-by-the-hour report, it gradually immerses the reader into more demanding topics, like value stream costing or lean performance measurement, culminating in the thorough description of the Sales, Operations and Financial Planning (SOFP) process, which is the way, how an entire lean enterprise is planned, controlled and measured. Lean practitioners looking for specific answers to particular questions will find it easy to navigate through the book. People with the luxury of time for reading it cover to cover will also like it, due to the gradual increase in the complexity of the topics and the many references to other chapters.

"Who's Counting" focuses more on the human side of turning the vision of lean accounting into reality. The novel format is the best way to illustrate, how strong the resistance against change will be and from how many corners of the organization it will attack back. Knowing what to do and knowing why is not enough, the issue is not capturing people's brains. The real challenge is conquering their hearts, while tearing down decades worth of wrong beliefs, bad trade-offs and political game-playing. Mike, the hero of the book teaches us through his own mistakes, that patience, tactfulness and respect for people is more helpful, then acting like a bull in a china shop. The reward is the enthusiastic desire of fellows to go his way and take ownership of the new processes. He even manages to turn Fred, a CFO who has to recognize, that most of what he built during his career was wrong, to use the 3 years until his retirement for becoming the most enthusiastic advocate of change!

Both books provide the reader with insight and incite self-reflection about "the way, we do things". There is hardly any chapter without a sacred cow being slaughtered, however this will strike the reader as plain common sense, due to the thorough description of the reasons. Deeply engrained management practices, such as approval routings, full absorption overhead allocation, standard costing or departmental budgeting will seem ridiculous, once the reader starts to open the eyes to see their fundamentally wrong assumptions.

These books will make You hate many of Your current processes!

The Best Management Accounting Book in Years

Helpful Votes: 6 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2006-11-07

"Practical Lean Accounting" is the best management accounting book I've read in 20 years - maybe more. Well written and illustrated with plenty of examples and diagrams, it adds new tools to management accounting and restores the relevance of some older ones. As such I recommend it to all management accountants and students - whether or not you are involved in lean accounting itself.

The aim of the book is to "produce a roadmap for finance managers in companies seeking to transition their organisations into lean enterprises". Lean accounting is a new approach to managing a business and, as management accountants, we have a duty to be there. As the authors say "it's never too early to start dismantling the company's transaction driven control systems. They represent huge amounts of waste and cost to the organisation !".

Specifically, lean management seeks to radically restructure the organisation into Value Streams (rather than functional departments), and this requires new management accounting tools including Value Stream performance measures, Box Scores, new methods of planning and budgeting, target costing and a whole host of other tools. The book explores all these tools in detail. The introduction of "lean" tools also allows significant reduction in transactions in the company's accounting processes, including the elimination of full-absorption costing.

Lean accounting is, therefore, designed to replace "traditional" accounting techniques which encourage inefficient practices such as building inventory, and often lead to poor management decisions (using Standard costs). Traditional measures are also too complicated for operational employees to understand easily and are often too late to be useful in shopfloor decision making. Lean accounting, by contrast, is very much focused on simple visual shopfloor measures for instant decision making, coupled with management accounting tools for longer term planning.

"Practical Lean Accounting" provides a good overview of the lean management process, and excellent linkage to management accounting activities. Highly recommended.

Value Stream Management

Published in Paperback by Productivity Press (2002-05-06)

Authors: Don Tapping, Tom Luyster, and Tom Shuker

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Great tools for Leaning your facility

Helpful Votes: 12 out of 14 total.
Review Date: 2002-10-11

This book gave me great insight to re-initialized our lean efforts. We have been so busy and got caught up in the value stream mapping craze and kaizen events, but little impact. This book did a superb job in laying out the eight steps, with all the forms, templates necessary to ensure sustainable results. Great work by the authors!

Good primer

Helpful Votes: 17 out of 19 total.
Review Date: 2004-07-23

I use this book in my lean manufacturing class. It has good practical examples and a useful method for doing lean using the value stream mapping approach. I highly receommend this book for the first timers. I think someone who has no experience could get started using this book.

Practical book

Helpful Votes: 2 out of 2 total.
Review Date: 2007-08-13

VSM books shows interesting process to apply modern control thinking to production. However, clear products standardisation & determination process could be necessary before methods can be applied as well as possible.

Discussed waste elimination is generally nice approach. Waste elimination possibilities in organisations should to be evaluated with this book and more generally at lean bibliography, because elimination of waste helps almost everybody. :)

Good step-by-step recipe book for lean implementation

Helpful Votes: 3 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2006-09-15

This book provides a practical approach for implementing lean manufacturing and what pit-falls should be avoided during the lean journey. Recommended for organizations that are beginning lean manaufacturing implementation.

An Excellent Tool for all!!

Helpful Votes: 4 out of 13 total.
Review Date: 2002-10-22

This book has helped in all areas of our business. We are incorporating it into all of our processes!! Wonderful training tool for any organization.

Diet for a Dead Planet: How the Food Industry Is Killing Us

Published in Hardcover by New Press (2004-11-30)

Author: Christopher D. Cook

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a worthy analysis of contemporary agriculture

Helpful Votes: 11 out of 11 total.
Review Date: 2005-02-25

This is a well-written and well-researched description of the economic problems ailing contemporary American agriculture, and of the deleterious effects mammoth-scale corporate farming is having on the environment. The author is an experienced investigative reporter and an unashamed proponent of sustainable agriculture and the ever-dwindling "family" farmer representative of traditional crop cultivation in the United States. As such, Diet For A Dead Planet is a bit of a polemic and firmly in the camp of other books critical of the relationship between agricultural economics and modern food production, such as Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. Needless to say, Cargill and Archer-Daniels Midland executives are not going to be enamored of Diet, but any citizen concerned about the state of farming in the US, and its effects on public health and environmental well-being, would do well to read this book.

Cook organizes his topic into three sections, dealing with food quality and safety; the business and economic aspects of modern agriculture; and environmental consequences of profligate pesticide use and "factory" farm effluents. Each section contains several chapters with extensive footnotes. The chapters are obviously targeted for a general audience, and as a consequence are very readable without overwhelming the reader with statistics and technical jargon. In particular, I found the chapters on the evolving history of American agriculture offered a concise but informative account of a complex and often tumultuous subject. Other chapters on such diverse subjects as the "mad cow" crisis, the continuous deposition of toxic pesticides in water supplies, and the travails of workers in high-throughput slaughterhouse operations, are all eye-opening to one degree or another.

Cook ends the book with a admonition to the public: unless we actively choose to support organic / sustainable farm operations, our health and the welfare of the environment we live in are not going to improve. Rather than simple hectoring, however, in the last segment of the book he provides an extensive listing of whole-food organizations and advocacy groups dedicated to helping us change the way we eat and consume natural resources. There is of course an element of "better to light one candle" rhetoric here; even Cook is not so naïve as to think that tomorrow will see the US converted to any kind of enormous vegan commune. But his hope is that after reading Diet some of us will devote a bit of thought to the hows and whys of our eating habits, and in this, I think he is as realistic as any "muckraker" can be.

A no-nonsense book

Helpful Votes: 13 out of 13 total.
Review Date: 2005-02-06

Whether he is taking on the exploitation of farm workers and poultry-plant employees; the take-over of large-scale agribusiness; farm subsidies, or an America swimming in pesticides and animal waste, Mr. Cook has clearly done his research. Extremely well documented, the book contains a number of startling statistics. Did you know that in California's Central Valley, the 1,600 dairies there generate more waste than a city of 21 million people? Did you know that in 1997, growers applied more than 985 million pounds of pesticides and herbicides to crops? Can you conceive of a farm subsidy system that has people like Scottie Pippin and Sam Donaldson receiving farm program monies?

There is a lot to ponder in this book and some excellent ideas and suggestions as to what we as consumers can do to make changes in our lives and our communities to help bring farming back to the people and out of the hands of the giant corporations.

An Analysis of American Agricultural Mayhem

Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2006-12-04

Christopher D. Cook's latest book Diet for a Dead Planet offers the American public with a wake up call view of the food industry today. As an investigative journalist, he gives a complete overview of the socioeconomic and political ills facing food production. He begins the supermarkets and ends with the global agricultural market.

Cook inspects the multifaceted complexities which have arisen due to cheap labor, often exploited and without healthcare. He also depicts the plight of migrant workers, processed food, and pesticides manipulatively spread over crops with the able assistance of government subsidies. The findings are thorough, compelling, and difficult to ingest at times. However, they are warranted as he introduces authorities to backup his claims.

The statistics Cook presents are real, yet harsh. Yearly, 75 million Americans are sickened by the food they eat, while an estimated 67 million birds are killed by the millions of pounds of toxic agricultural pesticides sprayed on crops. Meanwhile, farmers that remain take home only about 19 cents per food dollar spent by the average consumer (this is in comparison to 37 cents in 1980 and 47 cents in 1952) according to Cook.

Cook closely examines every branch of the food industry. In doing so, he reaches a necessary reason for change. The socioeconomic, environmental, and political injustices currently practiced weigh heavily on America's well being. Within each chapter, he goes into great detail explaining, expanding, and scoping the historical difficulties and how they adversely impact today's food industry. Beyond that conclusion, Cook explains that unless a new solution, specifically changing how food is "made", Americans will continue to spiral downward.

Cook clearly maps out the issues beleaguering and tormenting many workers in the food industry from farmers, supermarket employees to higher up executives. All problems such as exploited migrant workers, sickened Americans, corporate control, and government subsidies carry negative consequences for the future if nothing is done soon. In Cook's last chapter, he outlines a solution which focuses on changing the role of the food industry in the future. This book is powerful in its own right. However, more pages need to be devoted to envisioning that solution than one final chapter. I hope to see more works from Christopher Cook. I recommend this book as a read for anyone who eats. This is also a book for anyone who wants to learn the truth about a topic in urgent need of active change and tired of complacency.

A book for anyone who eats!

Helpful Votes: 3 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 2006-07-17

This book will open your eyes to the American food industry...from poor quality to bad business practices, Cook covers it all. I knew that quality and mega-chain stores were a concern, but I never considered the demise of our communities and food culture as a by-product of these issues. This book won't help you to sleep easier at night, but it will make you think before you purchase your next carton of milk or loaf of bread.

Millions of Americans are sickening from the food they eat

Helpful Votes: 5 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2005-04-09

Millions of Americans are sickening from the food they eat, last year 5,000 died, and obesity and diet-related diseases are on the rise: so Christopher Cook's examination of the food industry in America in Diet For A Dead Planet: How The Food Industry Is Killing Us provides much food for thought. Cook is an investigative journalist whose probe of the food industry's perils is backed with facts and well-honed research. Food lies at the root of many epidemics and poor social and economic conditions. Cook not only pinpoints the problems, but argues for a new way of looking at what and how we eat which places sustainably produced foods within reach of the public. Diet For A Dead Planet is informed and informative reading.

Hallmark Keepsake Ornament Value Guide, Second Edition: 1973-2006

Published in Paperback by Bangzoom Publishers (2006-07-15)

Author:

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The best value guide I have ever used.

Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-02-08

The Hallmark Keepsake value guide was vary informative and well laid out
it is a pleaser using it. I would not hesitate buying another value guide for the year 2010.

Thank you for providing such a product.

A Hallmark Collector

Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-01-22

I think this book is a great way to keep track of my Hallmark Ornaments and give me a current value of each one. However, because values change from year to year, it could be a lot of work transferring them to a new book each year. I think every couple of years would be fine to keep track of what you have unless you purchase numerous ornaments every year. I would, however, like to know where the values come from. If the values listed are to sell, I don't think you could get the amount stated. However, if it's for insurance reasons, I think it would be a great book to have.

Hallmark Keepsake ornament guide

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2008-01-21

I just love this book. It gives you a picture for all ornaments, including miniature ornaments too. Plus, other specialty hallmark products. The book also gives you a market value of the ornament and is nicely organized. I would recommend this book for the novist collector and the serious collector!

Very informative book.

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2007-12-23

This book lists all Hallmark ornaments in pictures and prices. It is
helpful to find some of my ornaments and know their value. I would
recommend it to any collector of Hallmark.

A Good Resource

Helpful Votes: 5 out of 5 total.
Review Date: 2007-09-10

This guide is very useful for determining insurance values for a person's ornament collection. It is not as useful for determining sale prices as sale prices almost never equal value guide prices. It is easy to use and has good pictures of virtually every ornament and merry miniature Hallmark has produced. I highly recommend it to any serious collector.

A Reverence for Wood

Published in Hardcover by Dodd Mead (1984-01)

Author: Eric Sloane

List price: $14.95

Used price: $18.95

Average review score:

Best book on wood facts EVER!!!!

Helpful Votes: 0 out of 0 total.
Review Date: 2008-08-25

If you ever thought you knew all about wood, guess again.
This book has more history, knowledge and facts than any we
have ever had. We have a copy and have given copies to approx.
6 people in the wood working business.

We own a saw mill, but my husband was so delighted with little
known facts and trivia, we just had to share it with others.

A MUST buy!!!!

A Reverence for Wood

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2008-05-16

Eric Sloane has written several books, filled with his wonderful drawings, looking back at times in our early American past. This is the first of his I've read, and I want to read them all. I can't say if he is accurate in his depictions, nor whether his viewpoint has full historical merit, but he shows us the value of what we've lost.

Cliff Claven writes a book.

Helpful Votes: 4 out of 4 total.
Review Date: 2007-06-22

This is one of my all-time favorite books. I read it in a sitting. I'm not even all that interested in wood or building anything else that may have made me a likely fan. The writing was fantastically engaging, and the tidbits and anecdotes just kept coming. I say it's Cliff Claven writes a book because that's how I've been describing it for 10 years now - Sloane's enthusiasm and honest passion are to writing what the charm of a pure young laugh is to happiness. I've given this book away I don't know how many times, and have never heard of somebody not loving it too.

Great book, both for woodworkers and those interested in early Americana

Helpful Votes: 6 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2007-01-11

This is Sloane's best book in my opinion, but then I've been a woodworker for many years and already have "a reverence for wood". There is much to learn here, a lot of information compressed into easily understood drawings and text and a joy to study. Highly recommended for both the woodworker and anyone interested in wood and its properties and uses.

Pretty neat.

Helpful Votes: 9 out of 10 total.
Review Date: 2002-10-28

This is an easy read that yet conveys quite a bit of information. An important part are the drawings, which say more than a thousand words. It is an atmosphere book, which lets the reader understand something of the relationship between the early Americans and their material (wood). It also shows that wood allows more uses than what passes for woodworking these days.

I am a little dubious about the inclusions of trees in the back. The author appears somewhat out of his depth here (he is no Peattie, not by a long way).

Root Cause Analysis: Improving Performance for Bottom-Line Results, Third Edition

Published in Kindle Edition by CRC (1999-05-31)

Authors: Robert J. Latino and Kenneth C. Latino

List price: $94.95

New price: $68.36

Average review score:

A unique and efective approach

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 1 total.
Review Date: 2003-02-20

During the past ten years I have worked with a nunber of methodologies in the area of Root cause analysis. During this time I have seen none as effective and cost efficient as the PROACT methodologies showcased in this book.

Bob has written a classic RCA manual for all people in all industries. I personally have used both the methodology and software to great effect and would recommend them to anyone.

If you are serious about a reliability growth program in your site, then you need this book!

Excellent book for industry to survive in the 21st century.

Helpful Votes: 1 out of 3 total.
Review Date: 1999-11-18

This book gives you the tools to develop a strong reliability program. In my 35 years as a mechanical engineer (P.E.) in the chemical industry, I have seen several "programs" come and go. Reliability, when proactive as taught by RCI, is the one program that consistently documents very large savings to cost ratios. In order to survive in the 21st century, industry must have a strong reliability program. RCI is a pioneer (since the 1950's) in reliability and in particular teaching and training industry in using this valuable tool.

Plant Engineering Magazine Senior Editor

Helpful Votes: 10 out of 11 total.
Review Date: 2000-03-02

Closing the gap between the goals companies set and their actual situations is the overall focus of this book. Written by two experienced executives from the Reliability Center, Inc., the book helps readers identify, resolve, and eliminate the chronic plant floor issues, such as repeated equipment or system failures, that hinder the attainment of organizational goals.

Specialists in root cause analysis methodology, the authors discuss the roles of management and a root cause analysis team in prioritizing the problems to analyze, automationg the process, and helping to uncover the physical, human, and latent causes of undesirable workplace events. They point out that the gap between goals and reality that exists in virtually every industry leads to undesirable outcomes, failures, and incidents that siphon profits from the corporate coffers. To close the gap, they explain, companies must reinvent the way they work, understanding why errors occur and how to prevent them.

The book explains root cause analysis, which is a structured process designed to uncover the cause of any undesirable workplace event. The PROACT steps outlined in the book teach companies how to preserve event data, order the analysis team, analyze the data using logic trees, communicate findings and recommendations, and track for bottom-line results.

Case studies are used to illustrate the potential of root cause analysis, showing its effectiveness in particular in steelmaking, customer service, and manufacturing. Software for automating root cause analysis is also discussed. Informative, well-illustrated and well-organized text is worthwhile reading for any plant engineer seeking to understand why errors occur and to eliminate them, and have a direct positive impact on his company's bottom line.

RCA the way to go

Helpful Votes: 4 out of 6 total.
Review Date: 2000-02-02

I have now been involved with RCA for several years and it's the way to go in the future. This book is a good example of what Root Cause Analysis is all about. The book focuses on the use of the PROACT system and I imagine would they would work very well together. I am looking at trying PROACT as well, not just yet! Good book easy to read and gives good definitions to those foggy terms. I enjoyed the book and I use it for my job which speaks for it's self, it doesn't hide in a cupboard or on a shelf. I get the feeling this book is one of the better ones in the bunch, not just someone who has jumped on the RCA bandwagon because it's a flavour of the month.

A very readable book detailing an excellent system

Helpful Votes: 9 out of 9 total.
Review Date: 2000-10-26

I co-ordinate a root cause troubleshooting clinic at a major engine manufacturer. We have had moderate success with our investigations and have developed several powerful methodologies. This book has taken our procedures one large step further with a coherent, effective method to analyse and document a problem to root cause. The combination of system diagram, logic tree and verification log described in the book is exactly the kind of methodology we needed and is proving very useful. The book is well written and is filled with useful guidelines for such required activities as information gathering and selection of the most productive analyses to perform. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in root cause analysis.

Manufacturing Books