The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer by Jeffrey Liker Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer
Book Review: A "Must" for manufacturers
Summary: 5 Stars
There's nothing else to say when Toyota is recommending this book in their NA website.Book Review: A Classic for anyone in Operations Management
Summary: 4 Stars
Still revolutionary today. Despite public opinion turmoil surrounding Toyota's recent recalls, the principles and values which define the Toyota Way are as relevant and surprising as they were when they were first brought to light.
My only criticism is that the author's adoration of the Toyota way seem to take away from, rather than add to the simple matter-of-fact principles of the topic at hand. Still, this is a book that every operational manager should read, study, and take to heart.
These days, there's a lot of talk about empowerment, and a lot of talk about leadership, and a lot of talk about what's "needed". But, there are very few manuals with as many practicable ideas and examples of success as can be found in this book. It's a book about a little car company that went from being a post-war copy-cat, to being a world leader in introducing ways to make things cheaper, value their working staff more, and in caring about their customers. I still believe that's in the core of Toyota's values, explaining why even the CEO accepts egg on his face graciously when they have made mistakes, unlike countless other side-stepping finger-pointing execs who fail to own their own mistakes as learning examples.
Read it, learn from it. And understand why North American auto workers embraced these ideas, too, when Toyota started manufacturing in Canada and the United States.
Book Review: A Good Book
Summary: 5 Stars
Worthy for reading. We bought everyone in the management team this book.Book Review: A Misleading Book
Summary: 1 Stars
I work at TMMK in Georgetown. With management's and the author's permission I personally wrote a detailed critique of Dr. Liker's book back in Sept. 2004 and to date, 12 months later, not a response from anyone. Dr. Liker's book is well written, but it includes several key errors which, if omitted, would make the foundation of his thesis weak. So, here we are a year later and just this past week Toyota announced a major recall of 978,000 vehicles. That number is equivalent to 2 full years of production at the Georgetown facility, though it should be noted that those vehicles being recalled were not produced at TMMK. Regardless, they are still Toyota vehicles and one has to wonder how does The Toyota Way address this quality failure? Think about it folks - 978,000 customers of Toyota purchased a problem they didn't anticipate, didn't want, but now have to devote time and energy to resolve. In my critique, I advised Dr. Liker that this sort of calamity was inevitable - perhaps in the next edition he will revise his assessment of Toyota. Just this past week, Rick Popely and Jim Mateja, reporters for Knight Ridder News Service, addressed the very problem that Toyota and Ford have created for themselves of sharing drive-train components and platforms among several models with the downside being that when there is a problem, a lot more vehicles are affected. It's a cost-cutting measure which, both Ford & Toyota, are willing to employ in order to increase profits. My question is this: Will Dr. Liker address this recall, and prior ones, as he attempts to praise Toyota's Way? Listen folks, the 14 principles Dr. Liker details are great and I encourage any organization to follow them, because for the most part, they will produce great results. My point on this book is that the reader is being led to believe that the modern day Toyota applies these principles. That's simply not true, otherwise they wouldn't be forced to fix 978,000 vehicles. Those 14 principles work great, as they did nearly 60 years ago when Toyota Motor Corporation first began producing cars.
Please don't misunderstand me - TMMK and Toyota as a corporation does a reasonably good job and I personally own 2 Toyota's, a 2001 Corolla and 2005 Sienna. The fact that TMMK allowed me to contact the author and explain my concerns speaks volumes for the company's willingness to become a better organization. I like the company and my job as a Team Member - I simply speak up to make it a better company than it is - and I told Dr. Liker his best source for reality is to spend more time on the floor and in the trenches than in the boardroom. Well written book, but it's not the Toyota I know.
Team Member in Georgetown
Book Review: A Start
Summary: 3 Stars
Liker's "The Toyota Way" provides a good introduction for someone not familiar with "lean production" or "The Toyota Production System (TPS)." On the other hand, I prefer the materials written by Tachii Ohno and Shigeo Shingo (Toyota Production System developers) for their greater clarity (if you excuse the sometimes labored translations) and detail.
Liker begins by pointing out that in the 1980s it became clear that Japanese cars were lasting longer than American models and required less repair. (They were also cheaper to build - even if you ignored lower labor costs.) Toyota's profit for FY '03 exceeded G.M., Ford, and Chrysler - combined! Toyota has the fastest product development process in the world.
Key to the TPS is a commitment to continuous improvement, directed at "adding value." Adding value, however, is defined from the customers' point of view - specifically excluded are activities such as overproduction (creates unneeded transport, tracking, and storage space needs; also increases risks of obsolescence and quality problems), waiting (eg. watching a machine, lack of parts, bottlenecks, downtime - perhaps for line changeover), transportation, defects, and searching (eg. parts, and paperwork - retrieving, or finding the required information within it). Liker also reports that most processes are about 90% non-value-added (waste); if one focuses on value-added "process-time", the proportion of waste is usually much higher.
Keys to eliminating/reducing these problems include continuous flow (one-piece production cells), stopping to immediately fix problems, fast changeover (eg. easy line modification for alternative models), using visual control (eg. marked inventory boundaries, alarm lights), use of "pull" systems and "kanban" to eliminate overproduction (without complex computer systems), helping (and standardizing) suppliers, asking "Why?" five times when a problem arises to ensure correction of "root causes" in a manner that helps other areas as well (eg. why the puddle (oil leak), why the oil leak (gasket problem), why the gasket problem (wrong specifications), why wrong specifications (Purchasing Dept. focus on initial acquisition price), why Purchasing Dept. mis-focus (wrong reward critia) --> correct underlying problems so that does not continually recur), eliminating variation (eg. reduce suppliers, tighter tolerances).
Liker points out that American supermarkets provided Ohno with the idea for the TPS "pull" system (emptying of product space by customers results in a visual cue for staff to restock and reorder).