Taiichi Ohno Archives | Page 2 of 4

Hearing Taiichi Ohno's Voice

By Jon Miller - April 15th, 2011

Many of us have read the words of Taiichi Ohno and learned from his teachings. Relatively few of us have heard his voice and even fewer have met him directly. I unearthed a gem during one of my recent efforts to organize my work, and I

Six Degrees of Taiichi Ohno

By Jon Miller - October 26th, 2010

I was recently asked my view on an idea going around the community of lean thinking people. This notion goes that in order to be a sensei one must be separated by no more than two or three degrees from Taiichi Ohno. Without any disresp

Excerpts from An Interview with Taiichi Ohno, July 16, 1984

By Jon Miller - February 16th, 2010

One of the rewards of last week’s office kaizen activity at Gemba was the discover a copy of the 1984 interview with Taiichi Ohno. The original paper An Interview with Taiichi Ohno, July 16, 1984 is in Japanese and can be found o

The Kipling Method vs. the Ohno Method

By Jon Miller - November 4th, 2009

There is an interesting story told by Toyota veterans who worked directly with Taiichi Ohno. When the great sensei and architect of the Toyota Production System was introduced to the 5W1H questions for problem solving, he said “Y

Taiichi Ohno Video on Youtube

By Jon Miller - October 14th, 2009

Only it’s in Turkish. Unfortunately that’s not one of my languages, and I can only hear brief snippets of Japanese beneath it, not enough to make out more than a few words. If any readers are capable in Turkish perhaps you

Words of Taiichi Ohno Sensei: Kaizen by Inspiration is Not Kaizen

By Jon Miller - October 13th, 2009

I was flipping through some Japanese books on sayings and speeches given by Taiichi Ohno looking for inspiration for a quick blog post when I found this passage: “Within the Toyota Production System, a lack of ability to do kaize

Taiichi Ohno Quote of the Day: My First Move

By Jon Miller - April 29th, 2009

My first move as the manager of the machine shop was to introduce standardized work. How many people can say that the first thing they did when taking on a management position was to introduce standardized work? I certainly can’t

Taiichi Ohno’s Three Lessons for the New Toyota President

By Jon Miller - February 26th, 2009

Yesterday Kevin Meyer provided a useful summary of how Toyota is getting back to basics, as described in the Wall Street Journal article titled “A Scion Drives Toyota Back to Basics”. Here are the key takeaways from both so

The Toyota Production System by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 2 Pt.1

By Jon Miller - January 18th, 2009

Taiichi Ohno devotes fully half of his book to chapter 2. Titled “The Application of the Toyota Production System” is one hundred and one pages long and it provides the body of practical knowledge on what we call lean manuf

The Toyota Production System by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 1

By Jon Miller - January 8th, 2009

トヨタ生産方式―脱規模の経営をめざして First published in 1978, Taiichi Ohno’s book, “The Toyota Production System: Aiming to Manage Free from Economies of Scale” is a classic. I have never r

Toyota’s Top Engineer on How to Develop Thinking People

By Jon Miller - August 4th, 2008

The August 4, 2008 Nikkei Business Online article titled Top Engineer Explains How Toyota Develops People (技術最高職が語る「トヨタはこう人を育てる」). The article is an interview with Nanpachi Hayashi, Toyota̵

The 5W1H of 5 Why

By Jon Miller - July 30th, 2008

There is a wise saying that “Knowledge means nothing without wisdom to profit by it.” It’s not who we are, who we know, or what we know… it’s what we do with that knowledge. We all have tremendous power to

The Toyota Production System is Practice, Not Theory

By Jon Miller - August 29th, 2007

Pete Abilla from the Shmula blog, recently commented on one of our blog articles Is the Theory of Constraints (TOC) a Theory? He said: During my short time at Toyota, I learned this lesson well: we were always encouraged to “try

The Essence of Shop Floor Management

By Jon Miller - August 20th, 2007

Chris Schrandt is a Gemba guy from Toyota who has wealth of experience in quality management and TPS. He had several great quotes during a problem solving class today, and this one about exposing problems struck me as particularly wort

Taiichi Ohno’s Revolution of Awareness

By Jon Miller - June 25th, 2007

Very early in the book Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management the architect of the Toyota Production System calls for “a revolution of awareness”. He proceeds to talk about misconceptions and false beliefs of various typ

Habituation , Sensitization and Being Yelled At By Taiichi Ohno

By Jon Miller - May 25th, 2007

Neuroplasticitiy is the ability of the human brain to rearrange its synaptic networks based on experience. This primarily affects the hippocampus, the region of the brain playing a key role in memory. In turn, memory affects behavior.

We Are Now Shipping Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management

By Jon Miller - April 30th, 2007

Sweet relief, the books have arrived. Thanks for your patience. We’ve set up a flow line to pack and ship, paced at about 90 seconds per order. Now don’t everybody order at once. We value heijunka around here.

The Value of Figuring It Out for Yourself

By Jon Miller - March 27th, 2007

There is a curious mention of Nissan purchasing an American automobile factory before World War II and moving it to Japan in chapter 21 of Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management: Before the war Nissan had purchased an American facto

How Can They Not Change?

By Jon Miller - January 16th, 2007

I would like to say thank you to everyone who has been placing advance orders for Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management, coming out in March 2007. Here is a sneak preview from the book, a short passage from Chapter 37: Follow the D

Words of Taiichi Ohno Sensei, Part 4: It’s a Race to Get People to Think

By Jon Miller - January 10th, 2007

I came across a new quote from Taiichi Ohno recently. It was in Japanese, and may not be new to the world, but I can’t recall seeing it in English before. I think it nicely captures the idea of kaizen and respect for people, whic

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 37: The Standard Time Should be the Shortest Time

By Jon Miller - December 21st, 2006

“Speaking of standards, time study is another thing everyone gets wrong.” The typical time study is based on taking 10 times and setting an average time as the standard. Ohno says this is very bad because if you are watchin

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 36: Only the Gemba Can Do Cost Reduction

By Jon Miller - December 15th, 2006

Taiichi Ohno begins the chapter by demonstrating the Toyota philosophy of “aim for 10X improvement, not 10% improvement”. He instructed Human Resources to give the shop floor 10 people even though they had asked for 100 peo

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 35: The Monaka System

By Jon Miller - December 10th, 2006

How many Japanese words do we have in the Lean lexicon? Do we really need another? It’s a rhetorical question, but would you rather have “sweet azuki bean jam wafer system”? I thought not. “Replaceable core syst

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 34: The Pitfall of Cost Calculation

By Jon Miller - December 1st, 2006

In this chapter Taiichi Ohno talks about the pitfalls of using cost calculation to justify new equipment purchases and also decisions to scrap or replace equipment based on depreciation. “Whenever we need to make a decision, we e

Gemba Keiei by Taiichi Ohno, Chapter 33: The Difference Between Production Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering

By Jon Miller - November 26th, 2006

Taiichi Ohno begins the chapter by saying “We think of production engineering and manufacturing engineering as distinct things. We distinguish manufacturing engineering as the work to determine the method of manufacturing and pro

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