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.

Why Toyota Knows Perfection Is Impossible: A NUMMI Lesson

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NUMMI Tour Tale #4: The Pull Gift Shop While the NUMMI plant would score very highly on almost any measure of visual management, you could...

How Toyota Used a Pull System in a NUMMI Gift Shop

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NUMMI Tour Tale #1: Why Fix the Escalator?NUMMI Tour Tale #2: The Power of Reynolds WrapNUMMI Tour Tale #3: The Power of Why Back to...

Why Toyota Explains “Why”: A NUMMI Lesson in Respect for People

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NUMMI Tour Tale #1: Why Fix the Escalator?NUMMI Tour Tale #2: The Power of Reynolds Wrap I think, by now, that Toyota is pretty famous...

How a Simple Kaizen Idea at NUMMI Saved Hours of Work

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NUMMI Tour Tale #1: Why Fix the Escalator? The NUMMI tour guide told an interesting kaizen story as we went past the body weld area....

Toyota "Bucks Trend" by NOT Outsourcing

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Auto WeekThis article eventually reaches the conclusion I jumped to early on. Of course Toyota doesn't outsource as much as the other automakers. Toyota's...

Why Toyota Didn’t Fix an Escalator: A NUMMI Lesson in Lean...

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I really enjoyed my tour of the NUMMI plant last Friday. I'll post my summary thoughts and impressions from the tour, but I wanted...

NUMMI opens new training facility at plant

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Milpitas Post - LocalI saw the plant on Friday, it was pretty cool. Some excerpts from my visit notes are below, I should be...

Touring NUMMI on Friday

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I'm getting a chance to tour the NUMMI plant in Fremont CA, the joint venture between Toyota and General Motors. I'm very excited...

Updated: Toyota Recalls Record 1.27M Vehicles

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AP Article Here's one for anyone who would accuse me of only reporting good things about Toyota. They aren't perfect, but I assume they...

Toyota’s Basic Management Policy

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I was looking for some annual financial numbers for Toyota, for comparison to Ford and GM (Toyota's annual profit is more than the "Big...

Toyota also says "Beat Toyota"

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Kaizen and Lean Manufacturing thoughts | Gemba Panta ReiAnother good post from the Panta Rei lean blog on quality and perceptions of today's Toyota,...

Toyota Wins on Engine Production Metric, Is That What Matters?

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Toyota plant retains fastest engine making titleI started my career at a GM V-8 engine plant in the mid 90's. "Hours per Engine" was...
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