Simplicity Wins : How Germany's Mid-sized Industrial Companies Succeed

At the core of Germany's competitive success are the Mittelstand, medium-sized companies that, collectively, account for half of Germany's GNP and almost all the new jobs created in Germany in the last decade.

This book examines 39 of the highly successful firms in the manufacturing sector and identifies simplicity as the source of their superior performance--simplicity in their business objectives and in the structure and procedures they use to achieve these objectives.

Specifically, the authors reveal that the most successful Mittelstand make a narrow range of products, use up to 50 percent fewer parts in their products, treat suppliers and customers as partners, deliver products twice as fast, and have decentralized decision making.