The Lean Enterprise Institute has recently published Kaizen Express, an overview of the classic characteristics of “lean manufacturing” and, by implication, the Toyota Production System. As I set out to review the book, I found myself heading in two directions. One is the content of the book itself. Over the years, there have been a [...]
The Lean Enterprise Institute is taking up a “Back to Basics” theme. But what, exactly, are “the basics” of the Toyota Production System? This is critically important. Permit me to cite an analogy. Look at a house. What do you see? What would you say are “the basics?” At first glance, all houses have walls, [...]
Toyota Offering Buyouts To 18,000 U.S. Workers Clearly this is an interesting development.The question in my mind is whether it will represent the same kind of sea change that occurred in 1947.
Steven Spear has an interview on the concepts in his book Chasing the Rabbit on Business Week. He describes leadership very similar to Jim Collins‘ model in Good to Great Spear also has a blog / website at http://chasingtherabbitbook.com
Following on from the buzz created by the last couple of posts, I would like to go back in time a bit. In 2005 Steven Spear wrote a working paper called “ Why General Motors Lost and Toyota Won.” A reader can clearly the see emerging themes that were developed into his book Chasing the [...]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081222/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_toyota At one level, this news drives home the state of the global economy. But let’s parse the story a bit and see if there is contrast about how Toyota handles this vs. how their competitors do. First, of course, is the “…since 1941″ part, compared to the record losses that have been reported by [...]
Friday was a visit to the Toyota Museum in the morning and the “1 hour tour” of the Tsutsumi assembly plant in the afternoon. Toyota Museum If you ever get to Nagoya, the Toyota Museum is superb and definitely worth a visit. Even if you have no interest at all in lean manufacturing (so why [...]
TOYOTA: Company > Vision/Phillosophy Where better to learn about the Toyota Production System than Toyota? Their web site has always been a good source of basic learning. And like all things TPS, it is improved on a regular basis.