Toyota's improvement thinking from the inside: from personal transformation to organizational transformation
- New York Routledge 2025
- xvi, 118 p.
Table of Contents:
Preface
About the Author
Chapter 1 – The TPS way to personal and organizational transformation
· Onboarding Part 1 - standardized work kaizen training
· Onboarding Part 2 - two weeks on the production line
o TWI Training Way and team leader
o Team relations
o My Body
· Onboarding Part 3 – Standardized work “Try on Own”
· The change point: double consciousness and values
· The transformation model
· Sharing the good news
Chapter 2 – Technical systems, values, and a culture of improvement
· Stability vs muda
· Jidoka (integrating quality and productivity)
· Just-in-time
· Continuous flow and takt time
· Pull System (like a supermarket)
· Heijunka
· Standardization
· Safety and safe process design in transformation
· Ergonomics in daily management
· Kaizen
· Problem Solving
· Culture and transformational values
o Work setting
o Organization structure and ways
o Improvement
o Discipline
o Teamwork
o Communication
· Culture and the transformation model
Chapter 3: Problem-solving – Oh, the places you’ll go
· Paint shop process
· Problem solving in jishuken
o Step1: Clarify the problem (ultimate goal and the gap)
o Step 2: Break down the problem (narrow breadth, prioritize, go deep)
o Step 3: Target Setting
o Step 4: Root cause analysis
o Step 5 & 6: Develop and implement countermeasures
o Steps 7 & 8: Monitor the results/processes & Standardize
o Storytelling: The Report-Out
· Conclusion
Chapter 4: Continuous improvement (C.I.) implementation in other organizations (manufacturing, healthcare, education)
· A. C.I. in manufacturing - creation of a continuous improvement model
o Production control will level (heijunka) incoming customer orders
o Pull system to manage production and stores
o Processes and conveyance have standardized work
o Daily management and living the values
o From ideal to just-do-it
o Problem Solving
o Results
o Reflections
· B. C.I. implementation in healthcare
o Contemporary view of improvement in healthcare
o Traditional hospital culture and the transformational values
o Clarify the business/customer need
o Grasp the initial condition
o Ideal condition and plan
o Just do it and results
o Reflections
o Standardization
· C. C.I. implementation in education
o A framework for quality improvement in education
o Continuous improvement thinking applied in K-12 education
§ Clarify the gap
§ Break down the problem
§ Target setting and root cause
§ Countermeasure
§ Results
§ Yokoten (Spread) the results
Conclusion
Appendix
References
This book helps close the gap in how organizations think about and implement Toyota’s continuous improvement methods and management system. The Toyota Production System (TPS) is often viewed and adopted in organizations as a collection of tools to remove waste and streamline processes to provide products or services faster, better, or cheaper. While the tools for improvement and management routines are important, they are not where the true power of the system lies. The author’s eight-year journey inside Toyota was full of experiences that developed the power for continuous improvement. These learnings are rarely if ever captured in books on lean or taught in business and engineering classrooms.
This book describes, in part, how Toyota, through its coaches and leaders, develops its members’ capabilities through a series of continuous improvement (kaizen and problem-solving) activities. For many members of Toyota, this process results in a personal transformation that ultimately leads to organizational transformation.
This book presents a model for organizational transformation that includes technical systems, organizational principles/values, and spirituality/mindset to achieve enduring high performance. This book shifts from the continuous improvement development way at Toyota to case studies illustrating the thinking and mindset to other organizations on their journey to transformation. It uses the TPS tools as an entry point for development and highlights the role that organizational values play in the pace of transformation. Several case studies are presented that include manufacturing (performance improvement of a production line), healthcare (improvement in neurosurgery patient flow), and education (improvement in standardized test scores).
The key benefit of this book is that it provides insights into Toyota’s culture and improvement thinking to help other organizations reach enduring high performance. The book is written for a wide audience so that readers outside of manufacturing organizations can understand the broad applicability of the Toyota way. In addition, it is written succinctly to help readers and practitioners focus their transformation efforts.