In the general and business press, Toyota’s quality issues are just that: quality issues. The industrial community wonders if there might be more to it: whether Toyota’s namesake production system (TPS), also called lean manufacturing or just-in-time production (JIT), has been sullied. To see why this is a concern, consider the primary objective of the Toyota system/lean/JIT...
Richard J. Schonberger, Ph.D., president of Schonberger & Associates, provides seminars and advisory services to industrial and service organizations worldwide. He is author of more than 150 articles and papers, a 12-volume video set, and several books.