Since so much of the success of Lexus depended on achieving these breakthrough performance objectives for the engine, and since this depended so heavily on production engineering, Suzuki presented a number of strict requirements to...
Developing a good concept, with its associated targets, will make or break any vehicle development program. If the concept is not well thought through and does not properly identify the market and how the vehicle...
Yukiyasu Togo was a successful Toyota executive in charge of Toyota Motor Sales, USA, in Southern California. His friends and associates were also well-to-do executives. But few would consider buying a Toyota. Mercedes and BMW...
So you set up your kanban system. (Kanban is the Japanese word for “card,” “ticket,” or “sign” and is a tool for managing the flow and production of materials in a Toyota-style “pull” production system.)...
For decades Toyota was doing just fine in applying and improving TPS on the shop floor day in and day out without documenting TPS theory. Workers and managers were constantly learning new methods and variations...
The traditional approach to process improvement focuses on identifying local efficiencies—“Go to the equipment, the value-added processes, and improve uptime, or make it cycle faster, or replace the person with automated equipment.” The result might...
In the 1950s, Ohno returned to the place he understood best, the shop floor, and went to work to change the rules of the game. He did not have a big consulting firm, Post-it® notes,...
When Eiji Toyoda and his managers took their 12-week study tour of U.S plants in 1950, they were expecting to be dazzled by their manufacturing progress. Instead they were surprised that the development of mass...
Toyota Motor Corporation struggled through the 1930s, primarily making simple trucks. In the early years, the company produced poor-quality vehicles with primitive technology (e.g., hammering body panels over logs) and had little success. In the...
His “mistake-proof” loom became Toyoda’s most popular model, and in 1929 he sent his son, Kiichiro, to England to negotiate the sale of the patent rights to Platt Brothers, the premier maker of spinning and...
The story begins with Sakichi Toyoda, a tinkerer and inventor, not unlike Henry Ford, who grew up in the late 1800s in a remote farming community outside of Nagoya. At that time, weaving was a...
Critics often describe Toyota as a “boring company.” This is the kind of boring I like. Top quality year in and year out. Steadily growing sales. Consistent profitability. Huge cash reserves. Of course, operational efficiency...
When I first began learning about TPS, I was enamored of the power of one-piece flow. The more I learned about the benefits of flowing and pulling parts as they were needed, rather than pushing...
The Toyota Production System is Toyota’s unique approach to manufacturing. It is the basis for much of the “lean production” movement that has dominated manufacturing trends (along with Six Sigma) for the last 10 years...
We place the highest value on actual implementation and taking action. There are many things one doesn’t understand and therefore, we ask them why don’t you just go ahead and take action; try to do...