TPS Benchmarking Archives | Page 4 of 15

There is No Such Thing as Wasteful Work

By Jon Miller - June 16th, 2009

I read an interesting article today in the Japanese paper Nihon Keizai Shimbun. The topic was how white collar businesses men in Japan are adapting the Toyota Production System, or what we would call lean thinking, to their work. The c

A GPS for the TPS

By Jon Miller - May 5th, 2009

One of the common objections we hear to doing kaizen is that “We’ve tried it before” and it didn’t work. It’s amazing that this could ever be a reason for people to stop trying, yet it is. Last summer I sp

The Lean System is Making the Most of What You've Got

By Jon Miller - May 2nd, 2009

If I had a dollar bill for every time someone said to me “This is not Japan” or “We don’t build automobiles” or “We don’t make the same thing over and over again like Toyota” then I would

How Do Lean Processes Prevent Human Error?

By Jon Miller - March 24th, 2009

Scott asked an important question on how lean processes can be used to prevent human errors. The good news is that lean processes not only support quality but they lean cannot function without a strong quality culture and organizationa

10 Things the Amish Can Teach Toyota Leadership

By Jon Miller - March 18th, 2009

Some of my friend have shared stories with me recently of the genchi genbutsu trips Toyota executives from Japan have been making by visiting factories overseas. On their next visit they should take a slight detour to to one of the Mid

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

TBP: Toyota Business Practice

By Jon Miller - February 22nd, 2009

Are you interested in practical problem-solving and continuous improvement methodologies? In this blog post, we explore the Toyota Business Practice (TBP) and its relationship with PDCA and A3 thinking. We also take a closer look at th

The Top 10 Titans of TPS

By Jon Miller - February 8th, 2009

Sean asked an interesting question: Who would you consider to be the titans of the TPS? Certainly, there was Ohno and Shingo, but is there anyone else that should be on the list? I like to connect the history to people because it shows

3 More Practical Ways to Show Respect for Humanity

By Jon Miller - February 3rd, 2009

One of the underlying principles of the Toyota Production System is the founder’s desire to instill in Toyota’s workers a deeply spiritual sense of respect for humanity in the course of operating a manufacturing company. Al

5 Why? vs. Why Not?

By Jon Miller - January 24th, 2009

The Toyota Why Not website came my way via Twitter. It’s an interesting distraction. The best part is the birds chirping. I actually looked for an open window until I realized that birds don’t chirp in January in Seattle. T

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