The Lean Library Here is a long overdue review of the book, The Toyota Way Fieldbook. I wrote the review following the format of The Lean Library and have also gotten the review published over there. The Fieldbook is an…
Lean Blog: LeanBlog Podcast #3 — Dr. Jeffrey Liker I hope you have listened to the LeanBlog Podcasts. I’m surprised that they haven’t generated more comments and questions from listeners. In my third Podcast, the first one with Jeff Liker,…
What’s Driving Toyota? Baseline Magazine: Here is a fairly broad overview of Toyota, written for a tech magazine audience. There are good details about the Kentucky plant and TPS (including some quotes from Jeff Liker), so it’s a good read…
Exciting news, I’m going to record a LeanBlog Podcast interview with Dr. Jeffrey Liker, of the University of Michigan and “The Toyota Way” fame. The interview will be Friday morning, Aug 25. Update: Here is the podcast. If you have…
Event Registration (EVENT: 22786)Here is the archive of the Industry Week webcast from last week featuring Jeff Liker, author of The Toyota Way. You have to register through Industry Week, but they will let you download the slides. “Siren Song”…
When I worked at the GM Powertrain Livonia Engine Plant in the mid-1990s, the hallway display cases held posters celebrating something called “The Livonia Philosophy.” It read, in part, like this: “through trust, communication, and respect for the individual, we…
1 — ‘Slow and steady’ drives Toyota’s growth – (USA Today) 2 — Toyota Closes In on G.M. (NY Times, requires free registration) 3 — Toyota Powers Ahead at Kentucky Plant (NPR) This is probably my final post until next…
Auto Week This article eventually reaches the conclusion I jumped to early on. Of course Toyota doesn’t outsource as much as the other automakers. Toyota’s own internal production can be cheaper and with better quality, I assume, than their suppliers.…
Quality Digest Magazine Many lean practictioners have read The Toyota Way, Jeffrey Liker’s book on the management system and management principles of Toyota. How many of us see the implementation of tools (like 5S or kanban) without recognizing the need…
Scroll down for video, how to subscribe, video, transcript, and more My guest for Episode #416 of the Lean Blog Interviews Podcast, joining us from Brisbane, Australia, is Brad Jeavons, a principal consultant with SA Partners. His colleague Peter Hines…
When I was a young engineer at GM’s Livonia Engine Plant in the mid-1990s, I wrote down some of the things production workers said to me. One of them stuck, a worker in a machining department: “I want to stop…
Someone walks into your office and says, “We have a problem.” Notice what your body does before your brain catches up. A small tightening. A breath you take to steady yourself. Maybe your face does something you didn’t authorize. All…
