Building upon the international bestselling “Toyota Way” series of books by Jeffrey Liker, “The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement” looks critically at lean deployments and identifies the root causes of why most of them fail. The book is organized into three major sections outlining: why it is critical to go beyond implementing lean tools and, instead, build a culture of continuous improvement that connects operational excellence to business strategy. Case studies from seven unique industries written from the perspective of the sensei (teacher) who led the lean transformation Lessons about transforming your own vision of an ideal organization into reality Section One: Using the Plan-Do-Check-Adjust (PDCA) methodology, Liker and Franz contrast true PDCA thinking to that of the popular, superficial approach of copying “lean solutions”. They describe the importance of developing people and show how the Toyota Way principles support and drive continuous improvement. Explaining how lean systems and processes start with a purpose that provides a true north direction for all activities, they wrap up this section by examining the glaring differences between building a system of people, processes, and problem- solving that is truly lean versus that of simply trying to “lean out” a process. Section Two: This section brings together seven case studies as told by the sensei who led the transformation efforts. The companies range from traditional manufacturers, overhaul and maintenance of submarines, nuclear fuel rod production, health care providers, pathology labs, and product development. Each of these industries is different but the approaches used were remarkably similar. Section Three: Beginning with a composite story describing a company in its early days of lean implementation, this section describes what went right and wrong during the initial implementation efforts. The authors bring to light some of the difficulties the sensei faces, such as bureaucracies, closed-mi
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The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement: Linking Strategy and Operational Excellence to Achieve Superior Performance
2 replies on “The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement: Linking Strategy and Operational Excellence to Achieve Superior Performance”
Worth it for the Case Studies For more than 10 years Jeff Liker and his colleagues have led the way in writing about the “Toyota Way”: holding up a beacon for the true lean philosophy. “The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement” doesn’t really do this. For the first time Mr Liker does not reveal some new aspect of the Toyota Way and explain how it works. Rather “The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement” is a sort of a review of the state of the art at the present time. It barely touches on Toyota at all and focuses instead on case studies of lean implementation in a wide variety of contexts. In my opinion this book is the weakest in the series but is still worthwhile for the case studies presented.
Brilliant book if you want to understand the art of … Brilliant book if you want to understand the art of Japanese manufacturing and there no better person than Jeffrey Liker, who has over thirty years in this field.