The Chase: Constant Pursuit For Improvement

By Parviz Daneshgari and Perry Daneshgari

Book Overview

The Chase is a business novel, which is based on a real case study. Its intended audience included the general public, management and administrators, students and teachers in business and engineering schools, and consultant practitioner. This book is unique because it targets the product development aspect of the product productions process. Almost every book written in similar topics concentrate on the manufacturing end of the process. That happens because manufacturing is tangible and visible, while engineering is intan gible and invisible. However, the fact remains that 85 percent of the money in any product producing and service industry is committed in the first 5 percent of the process, which is the engineering. The Chase follows Greg, a chief engineer at Michigan Motor Corporation (MMC) through the difficult task of improving the company's product development process. Greg approaches the problem by defining product, process of creation of the product, process intent and selections of the vehicle (tools) to create the product. The title refers to the continuous task of balancing between Cost, Quality and Time. The improvement of these three characteristics of the product in the design area is an uncanny task. Due to the nature of design and engineering most of the processes needed for product development are intangible. The first thing Greg has to do is to make the system and the processes visible. Greg is guided through the next three challenging years by Damon, a professor and change implementer in the industry. The key concepts that Damon helps Greg to understand are: System Design Principles Organizational Learning Principle Process Models Methods, Algorithms, Tools Team Technology Each concept includes a full complement of useful ideas. System design principles for instance are: Little's Law of Response Capacity Constraint Theory Leverage Principle Whole and Parts Principle Value Adding Principles Personal and organization politics are critical - but sometimes overlooked - factors in implementing change in any organization. The novel's chief character, Greg is guided through handling these aspects of improvement smoothly as well. In short, The Chase presents not only what to do to improve product development, but also how to do it successfully."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1515318931
• ISBN13: 9781515318934
• Release Date: August 2015
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 270 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Voyeuristic View of an Engineering Manager's World

This book was a great read! It affords the reader a voyeuristic view into the engineering / automotive / upper to middle manager's world. When you read this book, you feel as if you are a fly on the wall. You feel very much a part of the story. And this book makes you think! I very much enjoyed its thought provoking content, its local (Michigan) flavor, and the aforementioned voyeuristic view into the engineering manager world.

Shows how theory fits in the real world.

This story weaves many valuable and far reaching concepts into an entertaining tale of people coping with the need to invent new technology and also live full lives. I recommend this book to anyone who develops new products or wonders how it can be done better.

Entertains as it instructs-Well written for all businesses.

As you are entertained, you find yourself thinking about your own business. The light bulb goes on! Why are we in business? We may all need to be reminded at times.

If you loved "The Goal", you will love this book.

After 22 years in business and industry I can say that someone has finally written a management book that ties it all together. What "The Goal" did for manufacturing, "The Chase" will do for all business processes in general. Though it is written as a business novel, and the scenario is engineering based, the story and methods employed here are universal. I have had the good fortune of meeting Dr. Daneshgari at some of his seminars. I distinctly remember him because he called his job as being that of a "process detective" and the service that his firm provides as that of "an implementation company." He makes it very clear, in person and in his book, that he doesn't want to be called a "consultant" or even more trendily, a "resultant." The main wise-man character in this book, Damon Esphehani, is an amusing and thinly disguised nom-de-guerre for Parviz himself, lecturing to the other characters in his book, much in the same way he lectures to his students at the University of Michigan. Dr. Daneshgari's main theme in this book, "The faster you learn, the faster you learn" rings very true, and this book proceeds to clearly explain the process to fix the whole, and not a part, of a dysfunctional system or process. Destined to be a word-of-mouth management classic, this book is already creating a buzz among the consulting community, who frequently make their living by selling only partial solutions. Like "The Goal," some of the barbs shot at standard management practices in this book are so inflammatory that some of the issues broached in this book are best treated through the business novel format used here. To have done this book as a standard academic management text would have required endless peer-review and life-long defense of the concepts, while under this method, we all get to enjoy a wonderful story and learn at the same time.