The Goal by Eli Goldratt

The Goal by Eli Goldratt: Classic novel about the theory of constraints. I didn’t understand my job until I read this book.

Getting Things Done by David Allen: Read this book if you want to complete projects that have been lingering for years and be productive despite everyday distractions. Can’t recommend it enough.

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte: There’s a science to making great charts and graphs and this is the textbook. If you make charts for your job, you absolutely have to read this. See our results.

Priceless by William Poundstone: Before switching to Computer Science I toyed with being an Economics major in college. It’s a fascinating science and helps explain many things in the world. This book helped me understand that when it comes to price, throw economics out the window because psychology is everything.

The Long Tail by Chris Anderson: 20th century mass market products were about producing hits. Distribution and production costs have sunk so low, it’s now about producing anything for anyone. Does this book apply to our business? The constant stream of custom quote requests says yes.

The Toyota Way by Jeffery Liker: The Toyota Production system changed world wide manufacturing and this is probably the best written example of what it is.

The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowieki: Polls are almost always right and committees are usually wrong. This book explains why.

Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson: A takedown of standard business practices and ideas for new companies.

Any suggestions?

We keep track of the queue levels at every operation in our facility. Here’s a good example of how we were able to reduce 12 charts down to three without losing any information.

Before

After

Big thanks to this nifty Excel AddIn for getting Sparklines to work properly.