Management Lessons from Taiichi Ohno: What Every Leader Can Learn from the Man who Invented the Toyota Production System
Takehico Harada
McGraw-Hill (2015)

“It is a system that says there is no limit to people’s creativity. People don’t go to Toyota to ‘work’ but to ‘think.'” Taiicho Ohno

Takehico Harada is the author of this comprehensive, indeed definitive introduction to the Toyota Production System (TPS) and to the man who invented it, Taiichi Ohno (1912-1990). The book was translated by Brad Schmidt. Briefly, drawing on his experience of introducing a flow production method using a chain conveyor into the assembly line of a textile plant (completed in 1927) with a monthly production capacity of 300 units, Kiichiro Toyoda (1894-1952) introduced this same method into the body production line at Toyota Motor Co., Ltd.’s Koromo Plant (present day Honsha Plant), completed in 1938, by ensuring thorough implementation of jidoka and the Just-in-Time method, Eiji Toyoda (1913-) increased workers’ productivity by adding value and realized the Toyota Production System, which enabled Toyota to compete head-on with companies in Europe and the U.S. With strong backing from Eiji Toyoda, Taiichi Ohno helped establish the Toyota Production System, and built the foundation for the Toyota spirit of “making things” by, for example, creating the basic framework for the Just-in-Time method.

Harada explains that good kaizen [continuous improvement] “creates an environment in which work is meaningful. To sustain and manage a work environment like this, it is crucial to train people in the management of a Lean organization. Please use this book to that end, and make it your mission to create a workplace where smiles are everywhere and kaizen is happening all the time.” He worked for more than 40 years trying to create “that wonderful workplace” at Toyota Motor Corporation, Toyota Motors’ Taiwan plant. He is former president.

These are among the several dozen passages of greatest interest and value to me, also listed to suggest the scope of Harada’s coverage:

o Western vs. Japanese culture (Pages x-xi and 121-127)
o Flow (1-2, 14-15, 17-20, 32-35, and 101-105)
o TPS: Deployment (4-5, 65-67, and 137-139)
o Productivity (24-29)
o Skilled workers (29-35 and 89-97)
o Training (30-35, 52-55, 65-66, and 1q39-149)
o Management (39-41, 65-79, and 81-118)
o Kanbans (60-63)
o TPS and Corporate Culture (66-67, 123-127, and 147-149)
o TPS: Roles and responsibilities of management (70–79, 81-118, and 129-132)
o TPS: Authority and empowerment (90-97)
o Defects (94-96 and 128-131)
o Ship set production (114-118)
o Resistance to change (123-127 and 145-149)
o Abnormality management (127-129)
o TPS: Achieving adoption (132-134)

Here are the 15 ”sayings” of Taiichi Ohno that Harada wrote down, each of which he discusses.

1. “No One Really Understood What I was Saying, So I had to Go to the Gemba (“the real place”) and Give Detailed Instructions” (7-11)
2. “Kaizen Equals Getting Closer to the Final Process” (11-17)
3. “You Need by the [Assembly] Line Only the Parts for the Car You Are Assembling Now” (17-20)
4. “Building in Batches Stunts the Growth of Your Operations (Don’t Combine Kanbans [improvement systems] and Build a Group of Them” (20-24)
5. “Nine Out of Ten, One Out of Ten” (24-29)
6. “The Foreman or Leader Is the One Who ‘Breaks’ the Standard (When You Make an Improvement and You Can Take Out One Person, Give Up Your Best Person” (29-32)
7. “Multitasking Means Learning the Next Process — Keep It Flowing Until You Reach the Last Process” (32-35)
8. “What’s That Red Circle on the Top Right of the Graph?” (35-39)
9. “Are You as the Manager Having Them Do It, or Are They Just Doing It Their Way? Which Is It, Man?”(39-41)
10. “Standard Work for the Andon [indicator of a problem] Is, ‘Go There When It Flashes'” (42-45)
11. “Standard Work Is the Foundation of Kanban” (45-49)
12. “When the Worker Pushes the Start Button, He Has Stopped Moving. Can’t You Guys Figure Out a Way to Push Start While Still Moving?” (45-52)
13. “You Bought an Expensive Machine, and Now You Want an Expensive Foreman or Engineer to Run It? Are You Mad?” (52-55)
14. “Engineers in Production Become the Horizontal Threads in the Cloth” (55-60)
15. The Lowest Kanban Quantity Should Be Five” (60-63)

If you work your way through each of these in a patient and attentive manner, I think you will be amazed by the scope and depth of new understanding that will occur. Albert Einstein once stressed the importance of making everything as simple as possible…but no simpler. That in essence is Lean Thinking, the philosophical foundation of the Toyota Production System.

Vince Lombardi once held up a piece of chalk during a Green Bay Packers team meeting and said, “I can beat any offense or defense with this.” Presumably Taiichi Ohno and Takehiko Harada agree with me that the same can be said of lists such as this one. Be they sayings, rules or guidelines, however sensible they may be, they are essentially worthless unless and until they become articles of faith, not for a production process but rather for a way of life.