This book is about job shops. Inside is a combination of stories and practical tips from my experience. It’s not theory. This is how I lost money, made money, kept my job or got promoted. These are all the things I dug through the literature trying to find answers to.

Job shops can be many different types of businesses. Factories, distributors, and government offices could all be considered job shops. Job shops are all those places where the work you do, and the volume of work varies from day to day, even custom design businesses where every piece is unique.

There were seven challenges I struggled with that I couldn’t find adequate answers to. We talk about it here by addressing: controlling lead times, eliminating knack points, Return on Invested Capital (ROIC), solving dynamic capacity, getting to full kit, order unevenness (Mura), and Minimum Viable Process (MVP).

If you work in high volume mass production this probably isn't written for you. If you've never lost a night's sleep trying to understand how your business works, put this down. If you like big words and highly technical descriptions I’m not your guy.

This book is for the searchers. Because if high-volume production is heavy metal, make-to-order is jazz.

I’m looking forward to this. Come inside.

Torrence Smith