Comments from Toyota's managing director of global purchasing
Many interesting comments here from someone who worked directly for/with Taiichi Ohno. He comments on developing workers who can think — TPS being the “Thinking Production System.”
He also makes more detailed comments about global purchasing. The goal, he says, actually is to increase the level of local procurement. I assume this is done to minimize total supply chain costs (low inventory and fast response), rather than sourcing from the cheapest piece price country. Finding a global benchmark price is motivation for figuringt out how to produce it cheaper locally. I would assume that, through lean, you can still be cheaper even with higher labor costs. That certainly is the challenge for all of us here in the U.S. and other high wage countries.
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