Customer Reviews

The Machine That Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production-- Toyota's Secret Weapon in the Global Car Wars That Is Now Revolutionizing World Industry

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I have read a lot of the so called quality books, and have a master's degree in the field, and I have found few books that had this kind of relevance to how things are produced and why they work or don't work. More importantly, this is one of the few 'academic studies' (I recall this one came out of MIT) that is actually clearly written and straightforward.

Yes, Toyota is much of the focus in this book and it can sometimes seem to border on the PR level, but that doesn't take away from the information in this book. Having had access to most of the auto manufacturers when this study was done, and seeing the nuts and bolts, it is what people do wrong at other places that is as important as what Toyota had been doing right (a trend, I might add, that in recent years has dimmed, Toyota has had embarassing quality faults recently). The book does mention that what Toyota "pioneered" was not entirely homegrown, many of the techniques existed, but Toyota was unique in the auto world in the number of things they chose to adopt (as a counterpoint, when the 70's hit and the US auto makers started having real competition, they hired Dr. Edwards Demming as a consultant, he told them many of the things that this book points out and they basically paid the check, used it for PR about how they were serious, and ignored him).

And these are not new issues and continue to plague companies, fallacies like:

1)"It is the fault of the labor force"..while the UAW has not exactly been cutting edge, what this book points out is something known in quality circles for years, that most of the problems are using your labor force badly, not listening to them, and just plain bad management.

2)"The secret is robotics"..GM under good ole Roger Smith spent umpteen billions of dollars on robots, and their cars were still crap (and even better, when GM and Toyota did a joint factory in California in around 1980, they discovered that the most hi tech thing in the plant was a secretary's typewriter)

3)"Cheap Labor"....nuff said about that

4)"We could build as good a car as them (meaning Toyota, Nissan, etc) if we built only a few models". Problem? Toyota had more product lines then any of the big 3 at the time.

5)"We have team labor".....on the surface, yes, but when looked at you find the same old hierarchical management and decisions made by beancounters.

There are a lot of lessons to be learned in this book, and some surprises (anyone wanna know why Benz bought Chrysler? Benz production capability is one of the lousiest in the world as written about in this book, and I hear it isn't much better today).

One of the things that this book teaches is that a lot of the cost of vehicles is based in bad design, poor management and in an attitude that problems, no matter how small, can be overlooked. People are asking how developed countries can compete with third world labor, this tells how.

If you want to understand why GM, Ford, and Chrysler are doomed and have been doomed for two decades, this is the book.

I've worked both for GM (twice) and in Japan for a Japanese automotive supplier, and I can attest that this book really got it right.

Unfortunately, while everyone in Detroit has read this book, they have never followed any of its advice or conclusions. All the talk about restructuring the US automobile manufacturers is simply about reducing costs and not about making better products by working cooperatively with employees, suppliers, dealers, and customers. Instead, Detroit continues to beat up suppliers on price and wonders why their quality is poor, push employees on wages and wonders why employees care little if the company is successful, haggle with their dealer network to push unwanted cars onto unreceptive customers.

We can bail out the industry financially, but until they learn to compete with the Japanese, they are doomed to decreasing relevance and increasing losses.

This book isn't exciting to read, but nearly 20 years since its original publication, it remains as relevant as ever.

Lean production (now frequently called Lean manufacturing) has melded into several industries here in the United States, but back when this book was written, it was just catching on. I read the book in 2000. Many of the concepts are still worthwhile in this book, both for the historical significance as well as the lean ideas presented.

The Machine that Changed the World is a fascinating book that teaches what the Japanese learned and how to apply their ideas to the US auto market. Competition is always tough, but these tools provides a competitive advantage to those companies who embrace them and make them part of doing business. Not all ideas are applicable to every application, but there are plenty of diamonds to be farmed here.

Well trained employees, a commitment to excellence by everyone (from the janitor to the CEO), teamwork, flexibility of skill sets, and learning lessons from successes and failures are all important elements of lean manufacturing. Setting up manufacturing lines efficiently, working closely with suppliers, line smoothing, encouraging innovative and cost saving suggestions and much more are also critical lean concepts.

Lean manufacturing doesn't happen overnight and a company and its employees must be diligent in their efforts to put high quality products at reasonable prices out the door.

The Machine that Changed the World is highly rated by many people and should be. It has timeless ideas to produce higher quality products and recommends never being completely satisfied. Well written and researched, this is a top notch book!

The Re-Discovery of Common Sense: A Guide to: The Lost Art of Critical Thinking

This book is the basis for all LEAN. A Must read for all in business.

A landmark study. The agony and failures of the big three Detroit automakers, compared to the continuing success of Toyota and other innovative companies like Honda, demonstrate the effectiveness of what the authors describe as Lean Production. A 'must read' to understand some of the history of how their products came to be consistently rated at the top in quality, engineering, reliability, and dependability.

"The Machine" is a foundational work which peers into the heart of Toyota's production system and verifies through metrics that the way they have done business is measurably superior to other companies, both in similar automotive industries, and outside of the auto industry. Jim Womack and his team from MIT do a superior effort and provides a very good overview of Lean production and should be included in any ernest study of Lean principles.

While the book was published in the 1980s, it is still very valid. It's afterword addresses some of the changes in the intervening years. If you are interested in lean manufacturing this is a great history.

"An excellent book which goes very deeply into the history of the car industry. The authors also clearly support through comprehensive research on comparison between traditional mass production systems approach and lean production systems approaches on the global car industry. This book is still quite relevant even in today's car market, or any industry for that matter when one considers moving to a lean environment. Mass production approach and theory is becoming less and less relevant and sustainable in a 21st century business, this book could already see this as the 21st century was approaching, this book was written in 1990.

This book does require deep study, and can be challenging at times if you are someone who needs extra time with reading and understanding statistical information. In my opinion it is well work the extra time and effort."

Wow!!! It is amazing how everything Womack wrote in this book about the auto industry's future actually came true. What insight!!! This is also an excellent look at lean production, and how it extends beyond the walls of the organization to all of the organization's suppliers, and also to the customers.

Good book about the history of the big 3 and Toyota. Gives great details about what they each did and be able to use of these lean principles in current manufacturing.