Tag Toyota

Toyota Thinking: Leadership, Systems, and Continuous Improvement

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.

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More Toyota Quality Problems

Toyota fixing engine failures in new Tundra truck – USATODAY.com It’s hard to tell if this level of quality defect is typical for a new model launch or not. Anyone in the auto industry care to share a perspective on…

LeanBlog Review: Toyota Talent

Toyota Talent is the third, and newest, book in the “Toyota Way” series: In this trilogy of books, each is very different and has its own unique place in the Lean literature. These books are unlike a series of novels,…

Mini Lean Carnival

Here’s a mini Lean carnival of some good posts from other blogs about Lean: Got Boondoggle? Lost in Translation Great story from Mike about someone going to the “Gumbo” (plus one other Lean buzzword butchered, funny stuff). Good lesson about…

eBay and Respect for People

shmula » eBay and Toyota: Respect for People : Business, Technology, and Stuff in Between Our friend, Pete Abilla, is two weeks into his new Lean job at eBay and he’s posted some of his initial thoughts on eBay’s values…

Toyota’s Huge Profits and a "Dark Side?"

Detroit News: Toyota posts $14B profit Catching up on the news from last week. “We believe our continuous efforts have steadily contributed to our record net revenues, operating income and net income,” said Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe. The quote about…

Lean in the USA Today

Toyota’s success pleases proponents of ‘lean’ I know I’ve already linked to this article and other blogs in the lean world have already commented on it, but I have a few other comments. The publicity about Toyota becoming No. 1…

New Book, "Toyota Talent:" Out NOW

Toyota Talent Update 5/6/07: The book is now shipping from Amazon I had the pleasure of reading a pre-publication version of this new book from Prof. Jeffrey Liker and David Meier. You know Jeff from The Toyota Way (and my…

Clarifying Lean vs. Frugal

By Dan Markovitz There’s been some confusion over my recent post criticizing the Business Week article on Toyota’s “frugality.” I do not believe that Toyota is frugal (read: “cheap”). Rather, I believe that the company is simply focused on value.…

Lean and Green at Toyota San Antonio

MySA.com: Business: Following up on the Lean and Green theme, from the new San Antonio Toyota plant: “‘Muda’ is the Japanese term for waste. Toyota does not believe in muda, which is why San Antonio’s plant is so clean and…