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The Toyota Way, 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer (Hardcover)
by Jeffrey K. Liker
| Category:
Quality management, Lean production, Process improvement, Corporate transformation |
| Market price: ¥ 298.00
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¥ 268.00
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| MSL Pointer Review:
This is not only an excellent treatise on the Toyota's TPS, but a profound insight on the Kaizen culture, the real core competency of Japanese industries. |
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Author: Jeffrey K. Liker
Publisher: McGraw Hill
Pub. in: December, 2003
ISBN: 0071392319
Pages: 350
Measurements: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00017
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- Awards & Credential -
Winner of the Institute for Industrial Engineer's Book-of-the-Year award and the Shingo Prize for Manufacturing Excellence. Also a business bestseller ranking #1,258 in books on Amazon.com as of December 7, 2006. |
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- MSL Picks -
This book puts Toyota back where it belongs: front and center in the world of the lean enterprise. The idea that Toyota just originated lean and that others have since taken it further is a fallacy that has lately been creeping into publications and conference presentations. The reality is that Toyota is still far ahead and that the vast majority of companies that claim to be lean are only "kinda, sorta" lean, with managements that simply have not understood the approach.
The book has a visible structure that the reader can use to zoom in on topics of interest. Fourteen principles are stated upfront, and then a chapter is devoted to each of these principles. The writing is clear, and many outside sources are acknowledged with a thoroughness that is uncommon in business books. In particular, 28 Toyota executives are acknowledged or quoted, which gives the book the flavor of an authorized rendition of the company's philosophy.
The book's greatest strength, the closeness of the author to the company's management, is also its main limitation. As an academic, the author could have assumed a less worshipful stance. For example, rather than taking management statements about wanting to do right for society as a whole at face value, he might have pointed out that they sound like obligatory recitations of Confucian values, and that it is arguable that flooding the world with cars is in the best interest of the human race. Also, without attacking the company, he could have made its portrayal more nuanced and vivid by including more points of view, such as those of line workers and former employees who may have a different perspective than current top managers.
The executives quoted in the book clearly feel that the philosophy is more important than the technical tools of the production system. This insight, however, has come to them as a result of using the tools intensively for many years, and the reader should not be misled into thinking that it is possible to bypass the tools and go straight to the philosophy.
I also have a few minor quibbles with the way the book is produced. The fourteen chapters covering the fourteen principles have numbers that don't match those of the principles, so that, for example, Principle 6 is covered in Chapter 12. This is confusing when looking up cross references. The subject of this book also calls for abundant illustrations, but there is only one for every seven pages, and no photographs. Finally, I think that the use of long words where short ones would do should be identified as the 9th category of waste. We don't need to hear about a "paradigm," As Tom Wolfe's hero in "A man in full" points out, the only thing it ever does is shift. Saying "non-value-added waste" where "waste" would suffice also strangely suggests that there might be an opposite called "value-added waste."
All this being said, this book is a good read based on intimate knowledge. I recommend it to anyone involved with lean, and particularly to managers and engineers in the auto parts industry who want to sell their products to Toyota. (From quoting Michael Baudin, USA)
Target readers:
Executives, managers, operations professionals in both services and manufacturing sectors, entrepreneurs, government leaders, and MBAs.
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Dr. Jeffrey K. Liker is a professor of industrial and operations engineering at the University of Michigan and cofounder and director of the Japan Technology Management Program at the University of Michigan.
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From the Publisher:
Fewer man-hours, less inventory, the highest quality cars with the fewest defects of any competing manufacturer… In factories around the world, Toyota consistently raises the bar for manufacturing, product development, and process excellence. The result is an amazing business success story: steadily taking market share from price-cutting competitors, earning far more profit than any other automaker, and winning the praise of business leaders worldwide.
Professor Jeffrey Liker has been studying Toyota for 20 years, and was given unprecedented access to Toyota executives, employees and factories, both in Japan and the United States, for this landmark book. The Toyota Way reveals the 14 foundational management principles behind the automaker's world- famous system of "Lean production." You"ll learn how Toyota creates an ideal environment for implementing Lean techniques and tools b:
- Fostering an atmosphere of continuous improvement and learning.
- Satisfying customers (and eliminating waste at the same time)
- Getting quality right the first time
- Grooming leaders from within rather than recruiting them from the outside.
- Teaching all employees to become problem solvers.
- Growing together with suppliers and partners for mutual benefit.
Toyota's Lean production system started a global revolution in manufacturing and service businesses that many consider the next phase beyond mass production. The Toyota Way explains how Toyota's production system evolved as a new paradigm of manufacturing excellence, and describes companies in industries as diverse as healthcare, engineering, pharmaceuticals and construction, that are using Toyota's methods to dramatically improve their performance.
With a market capitalization greater than the value of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler combined, Toyota is also the world's most profitable automaker. Toyota's well known "secret weapon" is Lean production – the revolutionary approach to business processes that it invented in the 1950's and has spent decades perfecting. Less well known are the management principles that underlie Lean production, Lean product development, and all of Toyota's business and service processes. Today businesses around the world are attempting to implement Toyota's radical system for speeding up processes, reducing waste, and improving quality. But are they getting beneath the surface of Lean tools and techniques to the real foundation of Toyota's success?
The Toyota Way, explains Toyota's unique approach to Lean management – the 14 principles that drive Toyota's quality and efficiency-obsessed culture. You'll gain valuable insights that can be applied to any organization and any business process, whether in services or manufacturing. You'll discover how the right combination of long-term philosophy, processes, people, and problem solving can transform your organization into a Lean, learning enterprise – the Toyota Way.
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Much of Toyota's success comes from its astounding quality reputation. Consumers know that they can count on their Toyota vehicle to work tight the first time and keep on working, while most U.S. and European automotive companies produce vehicles that may work when new but almost certainly will spend time in the shop in a year or so. In 2003 Toyota recalled 79% fewer vehicles in the U.S. than Ford and 92% fewer than Chrysler. According to a 2003 study in Consumer Reports, one of the most widely read magazines by auto-buying customers, 15 of the top 38 most reliable models from any manufacturer over the last 7 years were made by Toyota/Lexus. No other manufacturer comes close. GM, Mercedes, and BMW have no cars on this list. Not a single Toyota is on the dreaded "vehicles to avoid" list, while a handful of Fords, almost 50% of the GMs, and more than 50% of the Chryslers are to be avoided, according to Consumer Reports.
Unfortunately most companies still suffer from short-term myopia. I give presentations about Toyota throughout the world, and I often get questions that make perfect sense for companies whose only goal is today's profits. Examples include:
- Will Toyota still use JIT if there's a major disaster that shuts down the supply chain?
- Doesn't Toyota lay off employees when business is bad for a particular product in a plant?
- If Toyota does not lay off employees, what do they do with them?
- Now that Toyota is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, aren't they more concerned about quarterly earnings?
- How does Toyota cost justify investments in technology for "quick changeover" and "right-sized equipment" to create one-piece flow?
The answer to all these shortsighted questions is simply this Toyota's business decisions are driven by its philosophies. It will not abandon them at the drop of a hat. The only way it will change its philosophies of manufacturing, investment, and managing people is if there’s a fundamental shift in the world that threatens its long-term survival.
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| View all 11 comments |
David Mier, USA
<2006-12-22 00:00>
I was one of the first members hired to work in the Toyota manufacturing plant in Kentucky (first 100). As such I was trained by true TPS experts from Japan. I can honestly say that Jeff captures more of the true essence of the Toyota Way than I have ever read. Now I am working with other companies that are attempting to adopt the Toyota philosophies for themselves. It was nice to see information that factually describes the philosophies of Toyota and to be able to share that with these companies.
Unfortunately, some people will read the book and assume that Toyota professes to be (or Liker is professing that they are) perfect. Far from it! Toyota (referring to the leadership of the company) would admit that they have much to improve, and that there are still many opportunities. They do not think they are "lean." In fact, word is that Eiji Toyoda himself said that the book exposed some weakness within Toyota and was an opportunity to reflect on how to become better. This is the true essence of Toyota. Team Member Mike in his review assumes that Liker is suggesting that Toyota is perfect. This is not the case. As with any organization there are many problems. For goodness sake, even though Toyota regularly ranks at the top of the JD Powers quality ranking they still average over 100 problems per vehicle! The notion of greatness is generated from outside of Toyota, not within. The management works hard to stay grounded in reality and certainly is aware of imperfections.
I think this argument is silly and not related to the book. The book is about the philosophy that Toyota embodies to manage their operations. Are there managers that do not live up to the ideal? Of course there are. Does that implicate the entire organization? No, it does not. The book does a good job of illustrating the intention of Toyota as an organization. You may not find here some of the common misunderstandings that are being spread around as "lean manufacturing" because honestly many of those concepts are not based in the Toyota Way.
The results of Toyota speak for themselves. They are outstanding, but not perfect by a long shot. This book does an excellent job of outlining the main concepts, but it would not be possible to outline the entire company with details of how to achieve the results in a single book. It is a very insightful look into a great company, not a blanket praising and blind admiration, but there are many good points about how Toyota intends to operate now and in the future. |
James Frantz, USA
<2006-12-22 00:00>
When I was hired as a Process Engineer by Toyota and shipped off to Japan to learn how to be a Toyota engineer, I was lucky enough to be a part of the system that Dr. Liker describes in his book. I can, and do, use the text as a guidepost as I look back at the things we did and can better understand the 'Why' versus just the 'What'. The book does an excellent job in laying out a solid structure for the sometimes ethereal concepts within the Toyota Production System and ties them together in a way that is both easy to understand as well as communicate. With this book, we finally have a body of work that transcends the basic Value, Value Stream, Flow, Pull, Perfection framework (don't get me wrong, I strongly support the Womack/Jones framework at operational levels) and gets the reader behind the results and into the thinking processes that drive the behaviors that deliver the results. While some readers that have written in and panned the book seem to think that Dr. Liker is trying to say Toyota is 'perfect', I think that they have, unfortunately, missed the real message in the book. That is too bad for them, because the message is clear and powerful. One respondent sounded like a frustrated UAW organizer, in fact. I can only encourage them to re-read the text and try and gain a deeper understanding of the concepts that are presented. I'm on my sixth reading and the pages are quite dog-eared, sticky noted, and written all over.
Long story short: If you want to get 'into' the thinking processes that drive the most successful automobile company on the planet (can this be disputed?) and begin to apply these processes to your own area, plant, or company, this is the book for you! Let's not forget, Toyota is building a successful business by bringing manufacturing jobs TO America, not rushing headlong to China, India, or some other Asia-Pacific destination. That speaks volumes to the inherent power of Lean to deliver Value to the customer.
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An American reader, USA
<2006-12-22 00:00>
I read Dr.Liker's book on Toyota as part of my ongoing research of lean manufacturing. Having read over 2000 articles and various papers on lean, I can say with sufficient impunity that this book gives a deep rooted understanding of the Toyota Way. However, we must take into consideration the views expressed by the team leaders who have been down in the trenches at the Toyota plant; no system is perfect, if it was, it would defeat the purpose of continuous improvement (wouldn't it ?). There is always some gap between theory and practicality, at Toyota they try and keep this gap as little as possible. |
Victor, USA
<2006-12-22 00:00>
Liker's book is no simple summary of the practices in Toyota's lean toolkit. In fact, he spends a considerable amount of time analyzing the problems U.S. lean sites have encountered when adopting lean tools without fully permeating the principles and philosophies throughout the organization's culture. The examples he cites underline this important deficiency and are worth the price of the book alone.
The chapters on the development of the Lexus and Prius are particularly compelling. Toyota's holistic development approach offers all industries a fine example of how product development should be done. |
View all 11 comments |
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