Speed-Based Target Profit – Steven Bonacorsi Book Review

Book Review – Speed-Based Target Profit: Planning and Developing Synchronous Profitable Operations by Alin Posteucă

The author, Alin Posteucă, has conducted a very courageous and honest examination of Toyota Production Systems (TPS), Lean Manufacturing, Theory of Constraints (ToC), Six Sigma, Kaizen (incremental changes) and Kaikaku (Radical Change), Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), Total Quality Management (TQM) and its strengths and weaknesses in achieving planning and developing synchronous (occurring at the same time) profitability in operations. While the author is not proclaiming that these methods do not work, he does point out where many of the weak points in the overall systems do not achieve their intended potential. Additionally, the Author does not claim that the new system, Speed-Based Target Profit (SBTP), should replace these other system approaches, but instead demonstrates how Speed-Based Target Profit (SBTP) will help in the realization of the target profit these systems strive to achieve.

The Author has introduced new concepts, tools and methods such as Takt Profit, Kaizenshiro, first presented in his previous books on Methods Design Concept (MDC), Waste Map, and presents a deeper understanding of the various concepts like the 3 G’s of Kaizen: Gemba, Gembutsu, Genjitsu.

I usually read a book in a day or 2, but I spent more than three weeks studying this book. This is a book for deep thinkers and for those wanting to meet the annual and multiannual ROI targets in their businesses. The universities just do not teach these ideas in MBA programs and it’s a shame because so many managers and business leaders are left blind-sided in the real world with trying to solve the common problem of achieving profitability targets but without the system or tools to accomplish this goal.

I not only recommend you read Speed-Based Target Proft (SBTP), but that you study it deeply. While you will likely need to adjust the system and models to your own companies’ specific customer demand, flow, and constraints, whether that be internal (i.e., Total Productive Maintenance) or external (i.e., Supply Chain), the reward of achieving profitability targets will be yours to celebrate. Reading this book will not make the work you have to do in implementing the system, methods, and solutions less hard, but I believe it will make it at least possible. You can avoid much the trial and error, and strategies of hoping and praying, with real system tools and methods that the author has demonstrated can solve these common production planning and development problems that exist in most business operations.

I recommend this book to all those wanting to delve deeper into systems thinking, to understand the bridge between Industrial Engineering and business profitability. For all Operations Managers, Production Managers, Planners, Schedulers, Supply Chain Managers, Lean Sensei, Kaizen practitioners and Lean Six Sigma Belts. I challenge all professors in colleges and universities to encourage your students to compare and contrast, the concepts and models presented in this book, with the theories currently being taught. Books like this can bring hope and integrity, where learning can be restored in our educational systems, but more so that the students have the tools and insights needed to actually take on these problems in the real world.

Technical Review: While the book is ~350 pages, Alin has included ~100 figures to help visualize and understand the concepts and models presented. The book is very well organized with a detailed work breakdown structure in the table of contents, with over 80 References showing the tremendous research conducted, and very well-organized index of over 12 pages to make it easy for the reader to lookup and locate key terms and topics in the book.