This is a working paper by Steven Spear of Harvard Business School. Spear’s PhD work was summarized in a landmark and well-circulated Harvard Business Review article titled “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System.” I will leave it to the reader’s Google savvy to turn up the DNA article for yourself.
This working paper is much more raw than a finely edited HBR article. But it gets to the core research and conclusions without any fluff.
As you read it, compare what is described here with the focus of your own implementation.
Do you find any gaps?
I’ll comment more myself when I am not totally jet-lagged… I just got back from China. 😉