Toyota's Mom & Pop Suppliers Feel CCC21 Squeeze

Just on the heels of praising Toyota's supply chain strategy while chiding Boeing's I came across some articles from earlier this year that give quite a different picture of being a Toyota supplier. "Best in the World" and No Hope to be Seen A six-part series titled "At the Feet more>>

The Wedge is the Simplest of Tools

The wedge is the simplest of tools. A wedge has a flat end and a pointy end. A wedge converts a blunt, general force into a sharp, narrowly focused force. A wedge is very effective at separating things, breaking things apart or dividing them into portions. I learned to respect more>>

The Hard Sell for Cells

On a few occasions lately I've had to make the hard sell for cells. Typically when teaching people how to implement TPS we show more than tell. The learning by doing helps people take ownership of the decision to make a significant change. But more so than changing methods, making more>>

Oh Noes! Boeing Haz Supply Chain Woes?

Laughter is good for us, even though sometimes we laugh because of pathos more than humor. So it is with news that Lack of Seats, Galleys Delays Boeing, Airbus from today's Wall Street Journal. Airbus and Boeing Co. have both struggled with complex technology and assembly issues that have delayed more>>

Learning from Things that Didn't Work

One of the common objections we hear to doing kaizen is that "We've tried it before and it didn't work," as if past failures were ever a reason for not trying again. Experience is a good teacher only if we step over the line from the past to the present more>>

Toyota's Top Engineer on How to Develop Thinking People

The August 4, 2008 Nikkei Business Online article titled Top Engineer Explains How Toyota Develops People (技術最高職が語る「トヨタはこう人を育てる」). The article is an interview with Nanpachi Hayashi, Toyota's top engineer. He was a student of Taiichi Ohno, and much what he talks about sounds like it came out of the pages of more>>

The 5W1H of 5 Why

There is a wise saying that "Knowledge means nothing without wisdom to profit by it." It's not who we are, who we know or what we know, it's what we do with that knowledge. We all have tremendous power to do good or ill depending on how we put our more>>

Ambiguous Visual Controls: Stop on Green

One of the small remaining delights in foreign travel after 15 years of it is the discovery of yet another laughably ambiguous visual control. Something about them tickles the sense of humor that has been punished by jet lag and questionable menu choices. This latest ambiguous visual control comes from more>>

The Lean Journey and the Long Path

A journey is used as a common metaphor for lean deployment. In fact many speak of the implementation of the Toyota Production System and its many non-production sub-processes as “the lean journey”. As a pursuit of zero waste, it is a journey that never ends. We can think of the more>>

Three Ways to Draw Future State Value Stream Maps

A value stream map is a diagram showing the flow of the material, goods or services and also the supporting information flow. It is typically drawn in a clockwise fashion beginning at the customer in the two o'clock position, backwards through the material and information flow until a complete circle more>>

We Do Not Make What We Do Not Sell: No More Trucks in Indiana

It is no mistake to say that the people at the top of Toyota, the President, CEO, Chairman and other executives all thoroughly understand production control. How many CEOs in the world can say this? In a word we might say that in TPS terms "production control" is to "make more>>

Kaizen Song: Mr. Pareto

This one was inspired by hearing Mr. Roboto on the radio shortly after helping a team make good use of Mr. Pareto's chart and related 80-20 principle during a lean implementation planning session. What else rhymes with "kilroy"? Mr. Pareto (to the music of Mr. Roboto by Styx) Domo arigato, more>>

Is it Kaizen or Just Good Management?

One of the risks, or should we say unintended consequences of a successful lean implementation is that people become unhappy when “there are no more problems to solve”. This seemed like an odd statement when it was first heard spoken at a recent lean leadership session, so we dug deeper. more>>

The Leisure to do Kaizen

The most difficult thing about sustaining a lean implementation to the point where it becomes an indelible part of the way of working is not about understanding the techniques and methods of the Toyota Production System, not about bringing people along to the new way of thinking, or bout getting more>>

Kaizen: Do What You Can Do Today

Some of the best kaizen ideas can be truly very little things. It is the accumulation of small changes daily that give us the habit of coming up with creative ideas. If you don't have on in your mind already, within the next few minutes you will have a small more>>

Ambiguous Visual Controls: No Running in the Airplane

The more you look the more you see ambiguous visual controls. Some are well-intentioned, while others appear to be half-hearted attempts to comply with some bureaucratic requirements. Others hint at hidden efficiencies or inefficiencies resulting in questionable visual controls. The fact that we get by in spite of these ambiguous more>>

Jedi Kaizen: Is the Force with You?

The type of quick improvements or "just do it kaizen" is sometimes called JDI. Recently I heard it pronounced "jedi kaizen" in passing. The jedi are a group of monks in the Star Wars series. As monks, they live simple lives and work to do good. Perhaps we can make more>>

Genjitsu: The Only Reality

There are those moments when the right words come together in an a way that resonates deeply and inspires one to write them down and repeat them to others. The words by themselves are not profound, and one suspects that even rearranged slightly they would lose their power. I heard more>>

Continuous Improvement vs. Continual Improvement

Most organizations implementing lean principles today do not in fact practice "continuous improvement". What they practice would be better termed "continual improvement". The distinction between continual improvement and continuous improvement is a fine but important one. Continuous means "without interruption" while continual means "frequent, repeated or seemingly without interruption". Continuous more>>

Ambiguous Visual Controls: It Is OK to Rest Against Window

Part of the ethos of a lean organization is the constantly improve by exposing problems and then systematically solving these problem. Visual controls make problems visible by providing norms you can see. The best visual controls are simple, unambiguous and direct. I saw this visual control on the window of more>>