Who is the Grand Poobah of Toyota Production System? The Wizard of Lean? His Royal Eminence of Efficiency? Sure, he had some help, but Taiichi Ohno was the behind-the-scenes master of what is now known as Lean Manufacturing. Time to appreciate a significant quality forbear! This year would have marked…
What do you know about Sakichi Toyoda? Did you know he was born on Valentine’s Day? That he started out in the textile business? That he came up with the 5 Whys root cause guessing game? Oh, and that he founded Toyota Industries Company!? This year would have marked Sakichi…
There was an article earlier this year with the title, “Whatever Happened to Six Sigma?” It focused on the rise and decline of the fortunes of General Electric—the most famous adopter of the Six Sigma Process Improvement method. It’s an interesting question, and the answers reveal some underlying truths about…
In a recent blog by Mark Reich, Senior Coach for the Lean Enterprise Institute, he harps on an experience circa 1994 where he reminisces on a life-long lesson on how a do-first mentality can bring more value to improving a process than coaching advice. With no engineering experience, Reich, an…
This week marks the 7th edition of the Executive Development Mission by Honsha. Direct from beautiful Japan, the Executive Development Mission aims to bring leaders to the next level of Lean thinking by showing the role of culture awareness. Guests will understand the pure principles of Kaizen directly from Gemba…
Lean manufacturing first became known in the late 1970’s as “Kanban” or “Just-in-Time,” and was often considered a distinctly Japanese approach for dealing with suppliers. Its application beyond Japan was doubtful, but over the years we learned that there was much more to what became known as the Toyota Production…
I recently read an intriguing treatise of personal and organizational philosophy called Principles by Ray Dalio, the investment guru and founder of Bridgewater Associates. It is certainly not a philosophy for everyone nor for every organization, but I always admire attempts to codify one’s thought process and views on how…
The Toyota Production System, a framework for conserving resources by eliminating waste, is considered the precursor to Lean Manufacturing. The two main concepts that drive “The Toyota Way” are Just-in-Time; only producing what is needed and not storing excess inventory and Jidoka; getting to immediate root cause when production runs…
The Toyota Production System, a framework for conserving resources by eliminating waste, is considered the precursor to Lean Manufacturing. The two main concepts that drive “The Toyota Way” are Just-in-Time; only producing what is needed and not storing excess inventory and Jidoka; getting to immediate root cause when production runs…