Carjacked

Fiat is one of the world's largest automakers,  but when it made headlines by grabbing control of a bankrupt Chrysler in 2009 it was unknown in the U.S. Fiat’s against-all-odds swoop on Chrysler---masterminded by Sergio Marchionne, the Houdini-like manager who saved Fiat from its own near-collapse in 2005 – has made the automaker one of the most unlikely winners of the financial crisis. Mondo Agnelli is a new book that looks at the chain of unpredictable events triggered by the death of Gianni Agnelli in 2003. Gianni, the charismatic, silver-haired power broker and style icon, was the patriarch who had lead the company founded by his grandfather in 1899. But Gianni's own son had committed suicide. Without a mature heir, the dynasty and Fiat were rudderless. Backed by Gianni's closest advisors, his serious, shy, and determined grandson John plucked Marchionne from obscurity. Together, they saved the family company and, inadvertently, positioned Fiat as a global trailblazer when the global storm hit.

• A classic story of ingenuity and hard work, the book portrays a business dynasty that triumphed over adversity and family tragedy because of its own smarts, sweat, and ability to bend the rules
• A an engaging tale for those interested in the stories behind the economic crash, the book contains never-before reported material about how Fiat succeeded in making Chrysler profitable where both Daimler AG and Cerberus, its previous owners, had failed.

A lean blueprint for creating long-term sustainability the Toyota way!

During Toyota’s highly publicized recalls of 2009 and 2010, the legendary carmaker’s 60-year-old reputation for operational excellence was put under the microscope. Business pundits wondered out loud if Toyota’s quality levels had decreased dramatically, while the harshest critics predicted the end of the company as we know it. For the most part, the government’s findings absolved Toyota of serious defects and accidents, and Toyota recovered rapidly—but mistakes were made, which showed that Toyota is not perfect. In fact, there is always opportunity for improvement in every process.

In his bestselling business management classic The Toyota Way, Jeffrey Liker introduced the world to the foundational principles that have made Toyota the envy of companies around the world. Now, in The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement, Liker teams up with former Toyota production engineer James Franz to explain the underlying thinking behind continuous improvement and why any company needs a disciplined approach to process improvement in every part of the organization.

Liker and Franz outline the common mistakes in thinking that limit results, and they reveal how Toyota achieves its dual objectives of improving business performance and developing its people through following Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s teachings of Plan-Do-Check-Adjust (PDCA). Through detailed case examples in many industries, you’ll learn how to:

• Determine why your processes aren’t achieving anticipated results
• Build a sustainable lean process with a well-defined purpose
• Create a system that reveals problems
• Teach every leader and team member at every level the art of PDCA for process improvement

With The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement, you have the foundation you need to develop a vision of continuous improvement specific to your organization and plot a path to turn your vision into a measurable reality.

Praise for The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement:

“I have found inspiration and lessons in these real stories from real people who try, sometimes fail, and yet find creative ways to succeed in adapting the principles of Deming and Toyota. Despite the diversity of applications revealed here, the commonality in vision, values, and desired outcomes unifies these leaders. You won’t be able to put this book down.”
RICHARD ZARBO, MD, DMD, Senior Vice President and Chairman of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Henry Ford Health System

“Lean is no longer an idea, a hypothesis, or a theory—it is a proven set of principles and practices that more and more people are using to achieve substantial, sustainable continuous improvement in a variety of enterprises. This book details the practices and case studies to help you bring Lean transformation to your enterprise!”
CHARLES BAKER, former Chief Engineer and former Vice President, Honda R&D Americas

Sheila Bair is widely acknowledged in government circles and the media as one of the first people to identify and accurately assess the subprime crisis. Appointed by George W. Bush as the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in 2006, she witnessed the origins of the financial crisis and in 2008 became—along with Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke, and Timothy Geithner—one of the key players trying to repair the damage to our economy. Bull by the Horns is her remarkable and refreshingly honest account of that contentious time and the struggle for reform that followed and continues to this day.

A level-headed, pragmatic figure with a clear focus on serving the public good, Bair was often one of the few women in the room during heated discussions about the economy. Despite her years of experience and her determination to rein in the private banks and Wall Street, she frequently found herself at odds with Geithner. She is withering in her assessment of some of Wall Street’s finest, and her narrative of Citibank’s attempted takeover of Wachovia is a stinging indictment of how regulators and the banks worked against the public interest at times to serve their own needs.

Bair is steadfast in her belief that the American public needs to fully understand the crisis in order to bring it to an end. Critical of the bank bailouts and the Can. $29.99 lax regulation that led to the economic crash, she provides a sober analysis as well as a practical plan for how we should move forward. She helps clear away the myths and half-truths about how we ran our economic engine into the ditch and tells us how we can help get our financial and regulatory systems back on track.

As The New Yorker said, “Bair has consistently stood out for her skepticism of Wall Street and for her eagerness to confront the big banks. A Kansas Republican, she has become an unlikely hero to economic liberals, who see her as the counterweight to the more Wall Street–centric view often ascribed to Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary” (July 6, 2009).

When Berry and Linoff wrote the first edition of Data Mining Techniques in the late 1990s, data mining was just starting to move out of the lab and into the office and has since grown to become an indispensable tool of modern business. This new edition—more than 50% new and revised— is a significant update from the previous one, and shows you how to harness the newest data mining methods and techniques to solve common business problems. The duo of unparalleled authors share invaluable advice for improving response rates to direct marketing campaigns, identifying new customer segments, and estimating credit risk. In addition, they cover more advanced topics such as preparing data for analysis and creating the necessary infrastructure for data mining at your company. 

• Features significant updates since the previous edition and updates you on best practices for using data mining methods and techniques for solving common business problems
• Covers a new data mining technique in every chapter along with clear, concise explanations on how to apply each technique immediately
• Touches on core data mining techniques, including decision trees, neural networks, collaborative filtering, association rules, link analysis, survival analysis, and more
• Provides best practices for performing data mining using simple tools such as Excel