Beyond Lean: Simulation in Practice - Second Edition

Reviewed by Omar Ashour, Assistant Professor, Penn State Behrend on 2/1/18

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

The book covers a wide spectrum of topics related to simulation for lean purposes. The book assumes a pre-knowledge in lean principles and manufacturing systems design and analysis. The book provides pseudo-codes for different simulation situations. The book is nicely organized. The first part provides background on simulation and then moves to explain simulation in different applications.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

I have not gone through the whole book at the time of the review. The content seems to be accurate and free from errors.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

Content is up-to-date. The applications and case studies are general and expected to stay useful for long time. The use of Automod might dictate necessary updates. The author should look for including other software packages that are up-to-date and provide more capabilities.

Clarity rating: 4

The book is clear to read for someone with some background in lean and simulation.

Consistency rating: 5

The book is consistent.

Modularity rating: 4

The text is divisible especially after part I. Most of the sections need the pre-knowledge from previous sections.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The book is well organized and presented in a logical and clear fashion.

Interface rating: 5

The text is free of significant interface issues, including navigation problems, distortion of images/charts, and any other display features that may distract or confuse the reader. The book can benefit from improving some of the figures.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

No grammar issues.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The text is not culturally insensitive or offensive in any way.

Reviewed by Jason Weaver, Assistant Professor, Brigham Young University on 12/5/16

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

This book covers a wide variety of scenarios that may be simulated in a Lean manufacturing operation. It appears to assume a fairly good understanding of Lean principles, manufacturing system design, and programming skills. Example simulation set ups are described in a generalized pseudocode, and are meant to be compatible with the AutoMod simulation software, which has a free student version.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

I have not looked through the code and equations for accuracy. In the text, it appears to be accurate in general, but there are several instances where it is either unclear or misleading. For example, it will occasionally seem to shift its voice from a textbook to text perhaps copied directly from previous versions or lecture notes. On page 6-18, for example, it says "How to do this case study will be described in tutorial style for the simulation environment that
you are using in a separate document." I eventually found that this document is actually in the Appendix of the book, but that was not clear from this statement.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

The case studies are generic enough to be useful for quite a while. If the AutoMod software becomes obsolete, a future edition may need to reference a different software package, but the actual instructions are software agnostic in general pseudocode.

Clarity rating: 2

It can be difficult to understand the book on a first reading. In many places, it can seem more like an academic paper meant for people already familiar with the basics than a textbook for undergraduate students with little experience in programming.

Consistency rating: 4

It appears to be fairly consistent

Modularity rating: 3

The individual sections seem fairly modular once the basics of the topic are understood. However, individual sections are not as helpful as an outside reference unless the reader has covered the previous sections, especially the introduction.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The topics are in a good order - basics of simulation are discussed first, followed by how to set up a simulation, followed by simple scenarios and increasingly complex ones.

Interface rating: 3

The book is available as a PDF. As such, it appears to be free from any major issues. It would be convenient to have it available in other formats as well, such as an interactive webpage, kindle or epub book, etc. In PDF, it would be helpful to at least make the table of contents hyperlinks to the different chapters.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

Looks fine.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

No instances appear to be inappropriate.