Acknowledgments

The original version of The Toyota Way book was the product of 20 years of study of Toyota. Much of that work was done under the auspices of the Japan Technology Management Program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where I was co-director, then director. This program was started in 1991 with generous funding through the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research. I learned a ton under the mentorship of Japan-expert Dr. John Campbell who was co-director with me. In the more than 15 years since the original version, I continued to write books about different aspects of the Toyota Way, continued to teach and consult, and, most importantly, continued to learn. Enough had changed and I learned enough more, that I decided to do a major rewrite for this second edition.

Toyota has been remarkably open in sharing a main source of competitive advantage with the rest of the world. A milestone occurred in 1982 when Toyota chairman Eiji Toyoda and Toyota president Shoichiro Toyoda approved the agreement with GM to create NUMMI, a joint auto manufacturing venture specifically intended to teach the Toyota Production System to GM, a major global competitor. Another milestone in opening up TPS to the world was the decision to create what is now called the Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC) in 1992 to teach the Toyota Production System to US companies by setting up working models across industries. TSSC has been spun off as a nonprofit and does free work for other nonprofits and charitable organizations and paid work for private companies.

Toyota has been unbelievably open to me, asking only in return to check documents for factual errors, but never trying to alter the content of my work. Unfortunately, I cannot acknowledge all the individuals at Toyota who graciously agreed to lengthy interviews and reviewed parts of this book for accuracy, both for the original version and for this revised version. Several of these people were particularly helpful in increasing my understanding of the Toyota Way, including (job titles are from the time of the interviews) the following:

Toyota

In no particular order.

  Akio Toyoda, President: For playing his Elvis guitar made of a muffler from Tupelo, Mississippi. How can a guy be so powerful and so much fun?

  Eiji Toyoda, former President and Chairman: A privilege to meet this great man, and flattering that he read the first edition of The Toyota Way in both English and Japanese (he preferred the English).

  Nampachi Hayashi, former Director and Senior Technical Officer, TPS: It was an honor to meet the most senior living student of Taiichi Ohno and hear his great stories.

  Kenji Miura, former General Manager, OMCD, and later President of supplier Toka Rika: One of the deepest students of TPS.

  Bruce Brownlee, General Manager, Corporate Planning and External Affairs of the Toyota Technical Center: My key liaison for the book.

  Jim Olson, Senior Vice President, Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America: Carefully considered The Toyota Way book and then supported Toyota’s full participation to ensure I got it right.

  Jim Wiseman, Vice President, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, North America: Opened the doors to the Toyota Production System in manufacturing.

  Irv Miller, Group Vice President, Toyota Motor Sales: Opened the door to the world of sales and distribution at Toyota.

  Fujio Cho, President of Toyota Motor Company: Shared his passion for the Toyota Way.

  Gary Convis, President of Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky: Helped me to understand the process of an American penetrating the depths and learning the intricacies of the Toyota Way.

  Toshiaki (Tag) Taguchi, President and CEO of Toyota Motor North America: Provided insights into the Toyota Way in sales.

  Jim Press, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Toyota Motor Sales, USA: Gave me a deeper understanding of the philosophy of the Toyota Way.

  Al Cabito, Group Vice President, Sales Administration, Toyota Motor Sales, USA: Thoroughly explained Toyota’s emerging build-to-order strategy.

  Tadashi (George) Yamashina, President, Toyota Technical Center, USA: Introduced me to hourensou and imparted a deeper appreciation of genchi genbutsu. (See the Glossary for the definitions of these terms.)

  Kunihiko (Mike) Masaki, former President, Toyota Technical Center: Took every opportunity to get me in the door at Toyota to study the Toyota Way.

  Dave Baxter, Vice President, Toyota Technical Center: Shared more hours than I had a right to expect, to explain Toyota’s product development system and its underlying philosophy.

  Ed Mantey, Vice President, Toyota Technical Center: Ed is a real engineer who is living proof Toyota can train American engineers to deeply understand the Toyota Way.

  Dennis Cuneo, Senior Vice President, Toyota Motor North America: Drew on his wealth of experience at NUMMI and beyond and helped me to understand Toyota’s commitment to social responsibility.

  Dick Mallery, Partner, Snell and Wilmer: Passionately described how as a lawyer for Toyota he was transformed by the Toyota Way.

  Don Jackson, Vice President, Manufacturing, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky: Explained and demonstrated what it means to respect and involve workers on the shop floor.

  Glenn Uminger, Assistant General Manager, Business Management & Logistics Production Control, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, North America: Explained how an accountant at Toyota developed a TPS support office and then led logistics for North America—and had fun at every step along the way.

  Teruyuki Minoura, former President, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, North America: Enthralled me with real-life stories of learning TPS at the feet of the master Taiichi Ohno.

  Steve Hesselbrock, Vice President Operations, Trim Masters: Shared generously of his years of learning and trial by fire as Trim Masters became one of the best Toyota seat suppliers in the world.

  Kiyoshi Imaizumi, President Trim Masters: Gave me the real story on what it took to be a Toyota supplier in Japan.

  Ichiro Suzuki, former Chief Engineer, Lexus, and Executive Advisory Engineer: Showed me what a real-life, super engineer can be.

  Takeshi Uchiyamada, Senior Managing Director and former Chief Engineer, Prius: Taught me what it means to lead a revolutionary project (Prius) by collaborating with people.

  Jane Beseda, General Manager and Vice President, North American Parts Operations: Articulated the Toyota Way view of information technology and automation in a way that made the lightbulbs come on for me.

  Ken Elliott, Service Parts Center National Manager: Shared his story of building the Toyota Way culture in a new parts distribution center.

  Andy Lund, Program Manager, Sienna, Toyota Technical Center: Shared insights into the translation of Toyota’s culture in Japan into US operations from the perspective of an American who grew up in Japan.

  Jim Griffith, Vice President, Toyota Technical Center: Always with dry wit, corrected my misconceptions and challenged my understanding of the Toyota Way.

  Chuck Gulash, Vice President, Toyota Technical Center: On a test-track drive, taught me “attention to detail” in vehicle evaluation.

  Ray Tanguay, President, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Canada: Taught me that technological innovation and TPS can go hand in hand.

  Dr. Gill Pratt, CEO of Toyota Research Institute and Toyota Chief Scientist: Delightful to speak with Gill and James (see below), both of whom grew up in the fast-paced software innovation world and quickly learned and adapted the Toyota Way.

  Dr. James Kuffner, CEO of Toyota Research Institute–Advanced Development and Toyota Director: I was glad to hear he was put on the board of directors to help the diversity of thinking at Toyota’s highest leadership level.

  Brian Lyon, Senior Manager Advanced Technical Communications, Toyota Motor North America: An invaluable resource. I worked closely with Brian on another book, Toyota Under Fire.

Toyota Motor United Kingdom (TMUK)

I hosted dozens of full-day tours of this plant and learned a great deal.

  Marvin Cooke, Senior Vice President Manufacturing, Toyota Motor Europe: When he was Managing Director of TMUK, he taught me a great deal about the Toyota Way and how to model leadership behavior.

  Jim Crosbie, Managing Director: Humble and knowledgeable, Jim—and other leaders at the UK facility—always inspired me.

  Alan Weir, General Manager, Quality: Shared the group’s quality philosophy.

  Dave Richards, General Manager, Human Resources: Helped me to understand the HR systems.

  Rob Gorton, Corporate Planning & External Affairs: Explained the hoshin kanri system. (See the Glossary for the definition.)

  Andrew Heaphy, General Manager Body Engineering: Gave a lengthy tour focused on hoshin kanri.

  Stuart Brown, Section Manager, Manufacturing Skills Development, HR: Taught me about Toyota’s Floor Management Development System (FMDS) and how the system develops people.

  Simon Green, Group Leader, Senior Manufacturing Skills Development: The person behind the detailed work of developing the new FMDS.

SigmaPoint Technologies

All in on learning and improving.

  Dan Bergeron, President

  Stephane Dubreuil, Vice President of Supply and Operations

  Robert Joffre, Director of Lean Transformation

Herman Miller

Exemplifies the thinking of the Toyota Production System Support Center.

  Matt Long, Vice President of Continuous Improvement

  Jill Miller, Continuous Improvement Manager, Learning and Development

Zingerman’s Mail Order

The most fun company I ever worked with.

  Tom Root, Managing Partner

  Betty Graptopp, Partner

Other Prominent Case Study Companies

  Rajaram Shembekar, Vice President, North American Production Innovation Center, IOT, Denso USA

  Dr. Prasad Akella, founder and CEO of Drishti Technologies

  Einar Gudmundsson, CEO, Rejmes Bil Volvo Dealership

  James Morgan, former student and former Chief Operating Officer, Rivian

  Dr. Jeri Ford, former Vice President of Business Operations and New Model Introduction, Rivian

  Scott Heydon, former Vice President of Global Strategy at Starbucks Coffee Company

  Edward Blackman, President, Kelda Consulting

  Richard Sheridan, Chief Story Teller, Menlo Innovations

  Charlie Baker, former Vice President, Product Development, Honda Motor

I owe a special debt to John Shook, the former Toyota manager who helped start NUMMI, the Toyota Technical Center, and the Toyota Supplier Support Center and then became president of the Lean Enterprise Institute. John has dedicated his career to understanding the Toyota Way. He brought this passion to the University of Michigan, where he joined us for several years as Director of our Japan Technology Management Program. John was my mentor on the Toyota Production System, teaching me first the basics and then, as I developed my understanding, the ever more sophisticated lessons in the philosophy of the Toyota Way. He read and provided key comments through both versions of the book.

For this second edition, I also owe special thanks to my former student and colleague at the University of Michigan, Mike Rother. Mike continued to research the TPS and diligently applied it at the gemba (the place where value is created) throughout the world. He emerged one day with a book, Toyota Kata, which he enthusiastically shared with me. I not so enthusiastically tried to understand the book. As I dug deeper, and after an endless series of coffee shop discussions with Mike, I came to question some of my assumptions about the Toyota Way and to consider more deeply what it means to think scientifically about overcoming seemingly impossible challenges. It led me to develop a more fluid and dynamic view of lean transformation and to reframe the section on problem solving: “Think and Act Scientifically to Improve Toward a Desired Future” (Principles 12 to 14 in this edition). Thank you, Mike.

My coauthor and coworker James Franz unearthed revealing statistics on Toyota’s profitability and quality that I discuss in the Introduction. I also appreciate the assistance of my former doctoral student Eduardo Lander, who reviewed chapters drawing on his Toyota experience. Many of the non-Toyota case examples described in this book were clients of Liker Lean Advisors that I worked on with partner Dr. John Drogosz. I also learned a great deal about hoshin kanri from my German partner, Dr. Daniela Kudernatsch.

Most of the original book was written in 2003 when I was privileged to spend a very cold East Coast winter in sunny and warm Phoenix visiting my former student and now Professor Tom Choi of Arizona State University. With mornings in a nice, private office without windows and afternoons of golf, it was the perfect climate for writing. The four-month adventure with my loving wife, Deborah, and my children Jesse and Emma is a once-in-a-lifetime memory.

This book looks beyond the four walls of Toyota manufacturing to the broader value chain. My understanding of “lean logistics” was greatly enhanced by research funded by the Sloan Foundation’s Trucking Industry Program, which is led by my close friend and colleague Chelsea (Chip) White at Georgia Institute of Technology.

Finally, I had a lot of editing and writing help. In the original version, when informed by my publisher that my book was twice as long as allowable, in a panic, I called my former developmental editor, Gary Peurasaari, to bail me out. He worked his magic on every page, reorganizing content where necessary, but more importantly, and in the true Toyota Way fashion, he eliminated wasted words, bringing value-added words to life. He was more of a partner in writing than an editor. Then Richard Narramore, the editor at McGraw-Hill who originally asked me to write the book, led me through a second major rewrite, which brought the book to a new level. For this edition, I had the expert help of developmental editor and writer Kevin Commins to help clarify my message and the detailed and loving copy editing and typesetting by Patricia Wallenburg of TypeWriting.

And of course, I am always inspired and supported by (and put up with) by my loving family, Deb, Em, and Jesse.