Key Points of the Toyota Way

I thought that could summarize the main point of the Toyota way.

1) Do not stop improvement. At Toyota, this activity is called Kaizen (Continuous improvement). This is the heart of Toyota's success. Achieve mey small improvements and overtime you will have huge improvements.

2) Toyota's success comes also from the application of Lean manufacturing, which in short can be summarized as adding value to your customers by eliminating all waste in your processes.

3) Waste comes from overproduction, delay, unneeded transport, over-processing, too much inventory, unproductive movement, defects and unused employee creativity.

4) Trying to apply the tools that Toyota has implemented and used over the years, do not guarantee success. The success comes understanding and making the tools part of your culture.

These are the basic principles of the Toyota Way:

1- Apply a long term philosophy and grow leaders who live it.
2- Create continuous flow.
3- Avoid overproduction
4- Level the workload
5- Develop the right culture to ensure problems are resolved at the source.
6- Standardize tasks
7- Use visual control
8- Use only tested technology.
9- Develop People (Leaders)
10- Respect your network
11- Observe problems at the source
12- Decide slowly but implement rapidly
13- Practice relentless reflection.