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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Hotel Room Error Proofing

This Is Broken – Hotel room warning I saw a large ad in the paper Friday that reminded me of this blog posting (link above). Be sure to click on the link to see a picture of what I’m talking…

Toyota and Systems Costs

Toyota sees hefty production-related cost cuts – MarketWatch It will be interesting to learn more about this approach as more is announced in the press. Note the shift from reducing PART costs to reducing SYSTEM costs. Seems like an illustration…

Some New Toyota Facts

Focus: Toyota powers to the front – Sunday Times – Times Online From England, an article that gives a historical overview of Toyota with some tidbits I don’t recall hearing about before: 1) Having their own semiconductor fab: Toyota is…

Toyota to Introduce Hybrid Tech to Lineup

Article Toyota plans on rolling out hybrid tech across all of their product lines by 2012. Now I can probably be accused of being a Toyota cheerleader, everything they do is great, etc. I have pointed out before, though, that…

Does Toyota Follow Deming’s 14 Points?

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…

Toyota Doesn’t Head to China?

globeandmail.com : Toyota heads to Simcoe Toyota is investing $50M to build a parts plant in Ontario. This plant will supply parts to the current plant as well as the future assembly plant that Toyota is building near by. Look…

Toyota to Increase "Build Where You Sell"

Chicago Tribune | Lafayette plant gets Toyota treatment “While General Motors and Ford are closing plants to reduce excess production capacity, Toyota will detail plans to build more cars in the U.S. at an underutilized Subaru plant in Lafayette, Ind.,…

Nice NUMMI Article

Inside Bay Area – IBA – Tri-Valley Herald – Local News Here’s an article about the Toyota-GM joint venture plant known as NUMMI. I had a chance to visit NUMMI late last year and I published some of my “tour…

Toyota keeps costs ‘slim’

PittsburghLIVE.com Here’s an article that highlights some of Toyota’s innovation and success, including a brief description of a “u-shaped cell” for a casting process, which is pretty unheard of. This article also details some of Toyota’s financial results, which are…

Toyota Makes Fortune’s "Most Admired" List

Fortune: Most Admired Companies: Snapshot Toyota is the first non-U.S. based company to make the list, in the #9 slot. The top 10 are GE, FedEx, Southwest, Proctor & Gamble, Starbucks, Johnson & Johnson, Berkshire Hathaway, Dell (falling from #1),…