Toyota is often cited as the inspiration for Lean, but its success is rooted in leadership behaviors, management systems, and a deep commitment to learning—not tools or slogans. This archive brings together blog posts, podcasts, and reflections on Toyota’s approach to quality, continuous improvement, psychological safety, and respect for people. Many of these posts explore what leaders outside Toyota often misunderstand—and what truly matters if they hope to learn from Toyota rather than copy it.
I recently ran into David Meier, co-author of the outstanding books The Toyota Way Fieldbook and Toyota Talent. He was talking about kaizen events and he made a few interesting points from his time at Toyota: 1) He was only…
Article: How Toyota Defies Gravity While researching an upcoming presentation, I found this FORTUNE article from 1997. I was looking for a reference to Toyota letting its competitors (yes, Ford, GM, and Chrysler) tour its factories. Why Would Toyota Let…
Ten Common Misconceptions About Toyota | Quality Digest I found this interesting column from Quality Digest, by Stewart Anderson, a guy who says he has first hand experience with Toyota people and suppliers. The website bio page requires registration to…
Industry Week Webinar – To Register Technical note: I’ve been having some problems where “leanblog.org” gives a “404 not found” error, but “www.leanblog.org” works just fine. I am working on getting this resolved permanently. Thanks for your patience if this…
Article – How Toyota builds cars Here’s an article from Canada about how Toyota (an automaker) manages to be influential to Bombardier (maker of planes) and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario (a fixer of people). The article, I think,…
I’ve been fortunate and grateful that my book, Lean Hospitals, has received good reviews on Amazon: 5 Star Reviews = 11 4 Star Reviews = 1 This week, I got my first “3 Star” review. That’s fine, I’m not too…
Calif. to get dose of auto anguish | Detroit Free Press | Freep.com Here’s a recent story about the demise of NUMMI, in which, the reporter wrote: “On the manufacturing side, GM did sustain much of what it learned from…
Episode #74 is a discussion with Roy Vasher, President of RPV Consulting, LLC and is co-author the book Toyota’s Supply Chain Management: A Strategic Approach to Toyota’s Renowned System. Roy works closely with a network of consultants to provide lean…
It’s been long rumored, but is now confirmed by Toyota that they are going to stop production at their ground breaking NUMMI plant in Fremont, CA. Toyota will move production to other plants, BusinessWeek reports. It is a sad day,…
Toyota to end output at GM jv plant in March: report | Reuters The WSJ reports that Toyota is going to decide by the end of August. Even with sales picking up, this data point doesn’t look good: Toyota’s North…
What top-performing EDs do – Hospitals & Health Networks I was really, Really, REALLY puzzled by the first line in this article, that read: “Lean, Six Sigma and Toyota Production System applications have simply not proven sustainable in health care.…
There are lots of comments online, blogs, and Twitter about people complaining that Lean at Starbucks is an attempt to turn people into robots. Again, that is the furthest thing from truth. Fine, don’t believe me. Believe a hospital. Some…