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 was sent a nice “gemba report” essay from a UK lean healthcare consultant, Andrew Castle. Andrew consults for the UK National Health Service and came with a group to tour two American sites: Toyota Industrial Equipment (forktruck manufacturing in…
tl;dr: The andon cord isn’t a tool–it’s a trust signal. Toyota’s thousands of line stops reflect psychological safety and leadership support. Ford’s rare pulls reflected fear and mistrust. Lean succeeds or fails on culture, not mechanics. In 2007, a BBC…
Toyota said to build plant in Mississippi – Feb. 27, 2007 Looks like Toyota’s rumored U.S. expansion continues. Toyota is under pressure to boost production in the region to avoid potential political fallout from a jump in the number of…
Why Toyota Is Afraid Of Being Number One In this Business Week piece about Toyota’s fear of a backlash against them, with their continued success, there was this tidbit I found interesting: “That same year [as NUMMI opened], a Ron…
From 0 to 60 to World Domination – New York Times More from Sunday’s long NY Times piece… We’re used to Jeff Liker saying good things about Toyota, but also Bill Gates? “It’s influencing just about every major company in…
From 0 to 60 to World Domination – New York Times From yesterday’s New York Times Magazine, this is a very long, meaty article about Toyota. It’s probably worth breaking this down into multiple posts dedicated to different topics from…
Detroit Free Press Commentary Excellent commentary here from columnist Tom Walsh. He says, in part: GM and Ford butchered the lean-production system in subsequent decades and lost their zeal for rooting out waste. When Toyota and Honda and other carmakers…
The ‘Toyota Way’ Is Translated for a New Generation of Foreign Managers – New York Times Here’s a very good article from the NY Times, a few days ago, that talks about Toyota’s relatively new process training worldwide managers in…
Toyota sweats U.S. labor costs Another article about the report that was taken from a Toyota computer, this time focused on Toyota’s concerns about rising labor costs. You might call this healthy level of desire for continuous improvement, always striving…
ARNnet – Dell hires Solectron CEO, forms operations group A frequent theme of mine is that Dell should not be lumped into the category of “Toyota Production System” companies even though many people (including some respected lean gurus) call Dell…
Toyota fears U.S. backlash over gains (Detroit Free Press article) I tend to fall on the side of those who think the “Detroit Three” are indeed scapegoating Toyota and that Detroit’s past and present horrible management mistakes are to blame,…
Business Report – Toyota’s gold standard status at top of quality pile takes a knock on 500 000 recalls: Here’s an article that examines if Toyota’s quality is slipping or not. This detail was interesting for some perspective on Toyota’s…
