Toyota Kaizen Methods: Six Steps to Improvement

by Isao Kato, Art Smalley

Toyota Kaizen Methods: Six Steps to Improvement focuses on the skills and techniques practiced inside Toyota Motor Corporation during the past decades. This workbook focuses on the actual training course concepts and methods used by Toyota to develop employee skill level, a core element of Toyota’s success. It is not a book about holding Western-style five-day Kaizen events, which were in reality quite rare during the development of Toyota’s production system and are virtually nonexistent today inside Toyota. Written by two of Toyota’s most revered and experienced trainers, the book ― If you take the time to study the concepts detailed here, you will be reviewing the same methods and techniques that were harnessed by generations of Toyota supervisors, managers, and engineers. These techniques are not the secret ingredient of Lean manufacturing; however, mastery of these timeless techniques will improve your ability to conduct improvement in almost any setting and generate improvement results for your organization.

Genres: Business

154 pages, Paperback

First published October 12, 2010

Reviews

[Sunil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives a fairly good idea about Toyota’s kaizen training programme.However I find it short on details.

[Dai Nguyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The translated version is not good. Some terms are weird. However, I have learned one useful point that is the ECRS method. Eliminate, Combine, Rearrange & Simplify!

[Nori Sa · Rating 5 out of 5]

1. There is no improvement until the results are measured and compared in Kaizen. Leaders must make every effort to ensure that a process is indeed improved, not just changed.

2. In the implementation of a plan, key is mitigate misunderstanding. It is often necessary to conduct what often feels like over communication.

3. Often training plan is missing an implementation plan. Those who make changes had time, affected members need training.

[Warren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great intro, places Kaizen in context with the development of continuous improvement at Toyota. Makes the links between Kaizen the US WWII 'Training Within Industry' (TWI) project. Logical. Thougtfully laid out. Plenty of high quality diagrams mean the text is easy to follow.

Highly recommended.