Nearly 30 years ago, the sages of Lean decided to invert the focus of Toyota’s production system (TPS) from waste (and cost reduction) to value. That might not have been a mistake then, but it surely is a mistake now. And therefore, it is time to return to the original view of TPS: customer first and cost reduction by thoroughly eliminating waste. According to the Lean Enterprise Institute’s Lean Lexicon, value is “the inherent worth of a product as judged by the customer and reflected in its selling price and market demand.” But, when sensei Chihiro Nakao challenged kaizen participants with ..read more

Two years ago, I got rid of my extensive collection of Lean books. I donated them all to charity, some 100 books. But I did keep the books about Toyota, Toyota Production System, and important related works, most of which were published in the 1980s and 1990s. These are priceless original sources of the thinking, methods, and wisdom that created something truly original and multifaceted in their teachings about business, markets, economics, people, processes, work, teamwork, quality, cost, and so on. You can re-read these great books dozens of times and always learn something new and important ..read more

After making many millions of dollars leading you down the Lean tools path, tricking you into thinking that Lean tools would make your company Lean, you now have the opportunity to spend $1500 per person to take a course where you will “learn why your lean effort is failing, and what to do differently.” For 25 years, since the publication of the first Lean tools workbook Learning to See, there has been far more Fake Lean than Real Lean and zero examples of Toyota-like Lean transformations as James Womack himself admitted in 2017 and again in 2022. The Lean Enterprise Institute’s admission of ..read more

Learn and appreciate the pioneering work of Masaaki Imai and the Kaizen Institute, and Yoshiki Iwata, Chihiro Nakao, Akiro Takenaka and Shingijutsu for bringing kaizen to the world. Please carefully study these 39 pages and return to the basics: TPS and kaizen! Learn more about the Kaizen Institute, Shingijutsu Global, and Shingijutsu USA. Kaizen-Institute-Part4Download NOTE: In 2003, Shingijutsu Co., Ltd. was split into two companies two years after Yoshiki Iwata’s death. And let us acknowledge and thank the interpreter — Andrew Dillon or Michiko Perry, and soon thereafter Reiko Kano ? — who ..read more

Learn and appreciate the pioneering work of Masaaki Imai and the Kaizen Institute, and Yoshiki Iwata, Chihiro Nakao, Akiro Takenaka and Shingijutsu for bringing kaizen to the world. Please carefully study these 39 pages and return to the basics: TPS and kaizen! Learn more about the Kaizen Institute, Shingijutsu Global, and Shingijutsu USA. Kaizen Institute Part3Download NOTE: In 2003, Shingijutsu Co., Ltd. was split into two companies two years after Yoshiki Iwata’s death. And let us acknowledge and thank the interpreter — Andrew Dillon or Michiko Perry, and soon thereafter Reiko Kano ? — who ..read more

Learn and appreciate the pioneering work of Masaaki Imai and the Kaizen Institute, and Yoshiki Iwata, Chihiro Nakao, Akiro Takenaka and Shingijutsu for bringing kaizen to the world. Please carefully study these 44 pages and return to the basics: TPS and kaizen! Learn more about the Kaizen Institute, Shingijutsu Global, and Shingijutsu USA. Kaizen Institute Part2Download NOTE: In 2003, Shingijutsu Co., Ltd. was split into two companies two years after Yoshiki Iwata’s death. And let us acknowledge and thank the interpreter — Andrew Dillon or Michiko Perry, and soon thereafter Reiko Kano ? — who ..read more

Learn and appreciate the pioneering work of Masaaki Imai and the Kaizen Institute, and Yoshiki Iwata, Chihiro Nakao, Akiro Takenaka and Shingijutsu for bringing kaizen to the world. Please carefully study these 32 pages and return to the basics: TPS and kaizen! Learn more about the Kaizen Institute, Shingijutsu Global, and Shingijutsu USA. Kaizen-Institute-Part1Download NOTE: In 2003, Shingijutsu Co., Ltd. was split into two companies two years after Yoshiki Iwata’s death. And let us acknowledge and thank the interpreter — Andrew Dillon or Michiko Perry, and soon thereafter Reiko Kano ? — who ..read more

Critical thinking or scientific thinking. What is the difference? And which should you practice? Let’s begin with definitions of these two cognitive skills: “Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.” (Source: The Foundation for Critical Thinking) Scientific thinking is a generalized application of a critical thinking process called the sci ..read more

Gaining mass appeal for something usually means to simplify it so that people can both see a need for it and to make it easier to understand and use. That means ensuring the product or service is an advancement while at the same time not breaking so many norms that people avoid it, or confidently suggest a new norm is now acceptable. The Holy Grail of Lean-world is the mass adoption of Lean management by organizations worldwide. Originally, “Lean” was intended to be a generic term for Toyota Production system (TPS), a method for creating material and information flow by eliminating waste, une ..read more

It has been 25 years since the workbook Learning to See was published. The historical consequence of its publication is two-fold: 1) It was the first “Lean tool” book, and 2) People have become more accustomed to drawing value stream maps than eliminating waste. After 25 years, it’s time to move on and return to the basics, kaizen; combined seeing and doing. Before this workbook was published, we learned to see waste via genba kaizen. We had no need for either current or future state value stream maps. But today, VSMs have become entrenched as one of the go-to “Lean tools” that people must us ..read more