Week 6 — Readings & Resources
Your primary reading is Chapter 6 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.
How to use this page
This page has 12 items (6 readings and 6 videos). Allow 58–70 minutes for everything. Each group links back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.
Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.
Pick-one quick path (18–20 min total)
① Which kind of making, and what to keep on hand
Chapter 6, Section “Sort the process: how much is made the same way” · Session 1, Segment 2, “Same, same with choices, or one of a kind” · Remember: some products are made identically in bulk, some from a standard base with choices, and some from scratch for one buyer.
- How Businesses Use Job Production to Meet Customer Needs — Two Teachers — a quick classroom explainer on making one item to one customer's order, with its strengths and drawbacks; as you watch, match it to the chapter's idea of customization and the wedding-cake example. (video, 2 min) (captions: creator)
- Manage your inventory — business.gov.au — a national government business site's step-by-step guide to tracking stock, listing it by category, setting reorder points, and counting it regularly; read the steps as resource planning for a small business, and skip the pointers to local tax rules, which belong to another country. (reading, 4–6 min)
② Finding the slowest step
Chapter 6, Section “Find the bottleneck: the cart's process map and capacity” · Session 2, Segment 4, “The slowest step sets the pace” · Remember: a process can produce only as much as its slowest step allows, so look there first.
- What is the Theory of Constraints? — Dr. Haywood — a business-education creator's walkthrough of what a constraint and a bottleneck are, with a short worked example of one slow step holding up a whole process; watch the first part on bottlenecks closely and treat the later theory as background. (video, 15 min) (captions: creator)
③ Building quality into the work
Chapter 6, Section “Build quality in: five approaches, not one final check” · Session 2, Segment 5, “Build it in, don't inspect it in” · Remember: quality comes from fixing the step where a mistake is born, not from checking harder at the end.
- Managing Quality Explained: Quality Control and Quality Assurance — Two Teachers — a classroom explainer that compares checking finished products with building quality into every stage of the work; listen for which approach sounds like the chapter's total quality management. (video, 9 min) (captions: creator)
- Lean Thinking Tutorial, Chapter 3: The Five Fundamentals of Lean — Invest Northern Ireland — a regional business-development agency's short tutorial on the core ideas of lean, starting from what the customer values; as you watch, name one step at a place you know that adds no value for the customer. (video, 3 min) (captions: creator)
- What is Lean? — Lean Enterprise Institute — a lean-practice nonprofit's short page on lean as delivering what customers value with less waste and steady improvement by the people doing the work; read the opening description and skip the course and book offers around it. (reading, 3–5 min)
- Environmental Professional's Guide to Lean and Six Sigma, Chapter 3 — U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — the federal environmental agency's chapter on what Six Sigma is, where it came from, and its five steps; read the definition, the history, and the method sections, and skip the statistical tools, which go beyond this course. (reading, 5–7 min)
④ Keeping the business's information safe
Chapter 6, Section “Protect the information: data, threats, and basic protections” · Session 2, Segment 6, “Spot it, lock it, update it, back it up” · Remember: each common threat has a matching everyday habit, and those habits are everyone's job.
- Protecting Your Small Business: Ransomware — National Institute of Standards and Technology — the federal standards agency's animated story of a small business hit by ransomware, and how it could have been ready; listen for the role a backup plays. (video, 3 min) (captions: creator)
- Cybersecurity Basics for Small Business — FTCvideos — the federal consumer-protection agency's short video on everyday protections for a small business; count how many of the chapter's basic protections it names. (video, 2 min) (captions: creator)
- Secure Your Business — Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — the federal cybersecurity agency's guide for small and medium businesses; read the four essentials at the top, which line up with the chapter's protections, and skip the services for larger organizations. Use it with the last goal in the Week-6 module overview, matching common data threats to basic protections. (reading, 5–7 min)
- Phishing — National Institute of Standards and Technology — the federal standards agency's small-business page on what phishing is, how to spot a phish, and what to do after a suspected attack; read the spotting and protecting sections as general education. (reading, 3–5 min)
Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)
- Manage your business: strengthen your cybersecurity — U.S. Small Business Administration — the federal small-business agency's guide, which this course returns to; read the strengthen-your-cybersecurity part for the common threats and the basic protections, and skip the other management topics. (reading, 4–6 min)
Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.
Provenance: Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com