Principled Productivity

This book demonstrates that ethical treatment of everyone in an organization:

1. Will increase productivity in all the functional activities of the organization as well as its members.

2. Will ensure the growth of the organization as a result of continuous improvements that may have been initiated by management but will be continuously improved by motivated employees.

It achieves this by:

1. The presentation of examples from personal experience and a review of the literature.

2. Providing a list of critical questions for each function whose correct solutions will provide a metric that enables and establishes obtainable goals for improvement.

This book is unique because it requires the decision-maker to examine each potential decision and ask the questions:

1. Do alternative methods exist that will achieve the desired goals, which will minimize the long-term adverse effects on affected employees and the future viability of the organization?

2. When is the appropriate time to implement this decision?

3. What is the best way to implement this decision?

The decision may involve a reduction in force (RIF), a potential change in a vendor or a manufacturing process, the formation of a safety team, and/or the installation or modification of an incentive system. The decisions could be involved in manufacturing, logistics, quality, or healthcare. This work will benefit everyone in leadership positions in all branches of government, manufacturing, logistics, human relations, and healthcare, especially those working with frontline employees, staff, and customers.

Dr. Gerald J. Watson, Jr. earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Industrial Management from the Georgia Institute of Technology, was commissioned and spent two years in the U.S. Army with the last tour in Vietnam. He returned to school to earn a Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering from North Carolina A&T State University in 2009 after working as a manufacturing engineer/manager and safety manager for various companies and consultant for over thirty years. His teaching experience includes the community college and the university level for over twenty years. He retired from the Department of Applied Engineering Technology at North Carolina A&T State University in 2019. He is the author of two books; Critical Thinking: Learning from Mistakes, How to Prevent Them and Integration of Methods Improvement and Measurement into Industrial Engineering Functions. He also co-authored a text with a former colleague at NC A&T, Dr. Aixi Chout, Applied Engineering Design and ten papers at various conference proceedings. His research interests include the reshoring of manufacturing and the application of the sub-optimal theory of Dr. John Nash of Princeton to real world applications.

Jesse Derouin (Illustrator) has worked for over ten years accumulating valuable industry experience. Jesse has had the benefit of having worked in several capacities gaining an understanding of how to successfully combine people, equipment, and processes to create favorable outcomes. As an adult returning student, he set about achieving an undergraduate degree in engineering, where he met Dr. Watson. He is now a graduate student studying for his advanced engineering degree in sustainable design.