The Toyota Way : 14 Management Principles From the World's Greatest Manufacturer

How to speed up business processes, improve quality, and cut costs in any industry In factories around the world, Toyota consistently makes the highest-quality cars with the fewest defects of any competing manufacturer, while using fewer man-hours, less on-hand inventory, and half the floor space of its competitors. The Toyota Way is the first book for a general audience that explains the management principles and business philosophy behind Toyota's worldwide reputation for quality and reliability. Complete with profiles of organizations that have successfully adopted Toyota's principles, this book shows managers in every industry how to improve business processes by: Eliminating wasted time and resources Building quality into workplace systems Finding low-cost but reliable alternatives to expensive new technology Producing in small quantities Turning every employee into a qualitycontrol inspector Foreword by Gary Convis Preface Acknowledgments The World-Class Power of the Toyota Way The Toyota Way: Using Operational Excellence as a Strategic Weapon How Toyota Became the World's Best Manufacturer: The Story of the Toyoda Family and the Toyota Production System The Heart of the Toyota Production System: Eliminating Waste The 14 Principles of the Toyota Way: An Executive Summary of the Culture Behind TPS The Toyota Way in Action: The "No Compromises" Development of Lexus The Toyota Way in Action: New Century, New Fuel, New Design Process--Prius The Business Principles of the Toyota Way Long-Term Philosopy Principle 1: Base Your Management Decisions on a Long-Term Philosophy, Even at the Expense of Short-Term Financial Goals The Right Process Will Produce the Right Results Principle 2: Create Continuous Process Flow to Bring Problems to the Surface Principle 3: Use "Pull" Systems to Avoid Overproduction Principle 4: Level Out the Workload (Heijunka) Princple 5: Build a Culture of Stopping to Fix Problems, to Get Quality Right the First Time Principle 6: Standardized Tasks Are the Foundation for Continuous Improvement and Employee Empowerment Principle 7: Use Visual Control So No Problems Are Hidden Principle 8: Use Only Reliable, Thoroughly Tested Technology That Serves Your People and Processes Add Value to the Organization by Developing Your People and Partners Principle 9: Grow Leaders Who Thoroughly Understand the Work, Live the Philosophy, and Teach It to Others Principle 10: Develop Exceptional People and Teams Who Follow Your Company's Philosophy Principle 11: Respect Your Extended Network of Partners and Suppliers by Challenging Them and Helping Them Improve Continuously Solving Root Problems Drives Organizational Learning Principle 12: Go and See for Yourself to Thoroughly Understand the Situation (Genchi Genbutsu) Principle 13: Make Decisions Slowly by Consensus, Throughly Considering All Options; Implement Decisions Rapidly Principle 14: Become a Learning Organization Through Relentless Reflection (Hansei) and Continuous Improvement (Kaizen) Applying the Toyota Way in Your Organization Using the Toyota Way to Transform Technical and Service Organizations Build Your Own Lean Learning Enterprise, Borrowing from the Toyota Way Bibliography/Chapter References Recommended for Further Reading Index "This book will give you an understanding of what has made Toyota successful and some practical ideas that you can use to develop your own approach to business."--Gary Convis, Managing Office of Toyota Fewer man-hours. Less inventory. The highest quality cars with the fewest defects of any competing manufacturer. In factories around the globe, Toyota consistently raises the bar for manufacturing, product development, and process excellence. The result is an amazing business success story: steadily taking market share from price-cutting competitors, earning far more profit than any other automaker, and winning the praise of business leaders worldwide. The Toyota Way reveals the management principles behind Toyota's worldwide reputation for quality and reliability. Dr. Jeffrey Liker, a renowned authority on Toyota's Lean methods, explains how you can adopt these principles--known as the "Toyota Production System" or "Lean Production"--to improve the speed of your business processes, improve product and service quality, and cut costs, no matter what your industry. Drawing on his extensive research on Toyota, Dr. Liker shares his insights into the foundational principles at work in the Toyota culture. He explains how the Toyota Production System evolved as a new paradigm of manufacturing excellence, transforming businesses across industries. You'll learn how Toyota fosters employee involvement at all levels, discover the difference between traditional process improvement and Toyota's Lean improvement, and learn why companies often think they are Lean--but aren't. I wish I would have read this book before I started studying any of the Lean/Six Sigma literature or even the Theory of Constraints for that matter. This book does an outstanding job of explaining the concepts Toyota developed through the years that heavily influenced the Lean/Six Sigma literature. I found myself reading the book to see how Toyota could have faltered as they have of late, but what I found instead was good proof of why Toyota will recover from this. Toyota has always been known for encouraging its workers to stop a line or an entire factory to avoid up stream errors. This was echoed in a recent news article stating how Toyota had stopped new car production to get a grasp on how to fix this issue and move forward to reclaim their reputation for quality. In my opinion, this book is a must read for anyone in the Manufacturing industry or business in general. This book explains the management principles and business philosophy behind Toyota's worldwide reputation for quality and reliability. It also shows managers in every industry how to improve business processes. -- Résumé abrégé tiré de l'ouvrage Toyota first caught the world's attention in the 1980s, when it became clear that there was something special about Japanese quality and efficiency.