All I need to know about manufacturing I learned in Joe's garage

is an excellent book by William B. Miller and Vicki L. Schenk (isbn 0-9630439-3-5). As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:

I mumbled back something equally unintelligible, the traditional response to somebody whom you aren't sure you've met and whose name you aren't certain of.

"Why is there such a conflict?" he asked. "Both departments are striving for the same thing, the good of the company. Why should they not work together?"

With all that volume flowing through his "factory," even the slightest unplanned act will ripple through everything else with a domino effect.

Fanatic: A person who redoubles his effort after having lost his direction.

If you double the amount of equipment and tools in use, you must halve the failure rate simply to stay even.

Planning can be perfect - it's all theoretical. Execution can never be perfect - it involves real people using real tools on real material.

People are expected to inspect their own work, both for function and to specification… Statistical and analytical charts are maintained on the production floor by workers, not by Quality Assurance people in a remote office.

Like most computer people would have, he had stayed close to his electronic toy rather than come to the garage to watch the production operation.

The finest carver does the least cutting.

Nobody ever tried harder under pressure.

"know'why" in addition to "know-how"