Customer Reviews

Toyota Production System on Audio Tape: Beyond Large Scale Production

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Mr. Ohno is the father of Toyota's just in time production system, also called lean manufacturing, though it is more than just that. The book gives an excellent primer on the basic principles of JIT, work-flow, leveling, waste minimization, etc. He also covers the history and application of these philosophies at Toyota. The book is a surprisingly good read, and Mr. Ohno's dynamic and engaging personality shows through. A must read for MBA students, persons in manufacturing or occupations where time is money.

This book gives some real insight into the how the "Toyota Production System" actually gets results -- not the mess you hear consultants preaching about on every street corner.

I think that to understand the "Toyota Production System," you need to understand that these guys were only trying to eliminate waste. 5-S, Kanban, Kaizen, Lean, Poka-yoke, SMED, and 1-piece flow were solutions to problems that they encountered when trying to get rid of the waste.

This is why the Consultant's shiny new silver bullet doesn't work for many companies -- they just don't get it. The solutions listed above are ways to solve specific problems such as inventory losses, bad quality, long wait times, production bottle necks, etc.... They aren't really "Methods" in themselves to analyze a problem.... just the solutions they found effective.

This is a short book and as such gets to the point. Explains difficult concepts in a simple way. This book explains how JIT, Kanban, Zero Defects came about. Also shows what is missing from American JIT and that is production leveling.

This was a good read with a lot of interesting history on the Toyota Production System but its just that. The majority of the book is written about the evolution of TPS and what economic factors drove its creation. If your looking for a book on thought process that inspired Taiichi Ohno to develope the Toyota Production System then this is the book for you. But if you are looking for a book that gets into advanced TPS processes then I would not suggest it.

I am a former Toyota Engineer and recommend that anyone interested in learning about the Toyota Production System a.k.a. lean manufacturing this is the place to start. Mr. Ohno is the creator of TPS and he gives a very good overview of how the system works. The book is very easy to read and easy to understand. This book should be read by all upper management employees looking to create a lean environment in their plants. The book will give you a good foundation to start implementing the techniques. It is the best book to read considering it comes from the inventor himself. It is the best you are going to find shy of being actually trained within Toyota's walls.

"Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production" is a very enlightening work by the inventor of lean manufacturing, Taiichi Ohno. This small book is packed with insights and ideas on how to efficiently and effectively run a production system. The Toyota Production is also known as lean manufacturing, entails, among other things, minimising waste through continuous improvement and producing only what is sold, as requested by the customer. This unique and innovative system explains why Toyota makes profits even in tough times when other competitor firms are losing money.

The book explains this fascinating subject in a simple and easy to read and understand way that makes it accessible to a wide range of readers. Among the things that I found very interesting was the concept of zero defects, production load-levelling, standardised work and just-in-time delivery.

The book is very enlightening reading for those involved in any production process.

There are lots of things we can learn from the Japanese. What I learned a lot from this book is the thought process that was behind developing there systems (just in time and "autonomation"). Knowing that they couldn't compete in the same methods as the Americans, the Japanese invented a system whose intent was to remove waste in all aspects of production.

"Consider the waste of overproduction, for example. It is not an exaggeration to say that in a low-growth period such waste is a crime against society more than a business loss. Eliminating waste must be a business's first objective."

These words may well have been written yesterday.
As a young engineer still in school, I always thought most quality control systems, especially the more popular ones like 6 Sigma and lean manufacturing were incoherent mish-mashes of techniques obviously borrowed from more insightful people, sold without the philosophical foundation necessary for their correct interpretation and optimal application. Something akin to applying the letter of the law without understanding its spirit or, to use a more "japanese" metaphor, McDojos.
Today, still a young engineer but now also a fairly experienced entrepreneur, I find this book to be a revelation. As others have mentioned, it gives the impression of having been written over many years during the author's spare time, and thus comes out a bit fragmented. Obviously, the author is no Kawabata, but this does not detract from its value; in fact, I found the writing style to require more reflection from the reader, which for a book on a subject so alien to most western minds is a good thing.
The book is fairly short, but you should take your sweet time reading it. Even for people already familiar with many of the techniques developed for the Toyota prodution system and borrowed by others, such as just-in-time, it will give you a better understanding of their use and limitations. And it is definitely not, by any means, showing signs of aging: the ideas developed by Ohno and those people he worked with represent the perfect foundation for some of the most intensely studied business ideas of today, such as mass customization and new interpretations of corporate social responsability.
A must read for entrepreneurs, definitely.

After 30 years of manufacturing experience and thinking that I was very knowledgeable of Lean Manufacturing systems, it came to my surprise that one book written almost 30 years ago would teach me all the things I take now for granted without knowing that all this knowledge came from the mind of one man and his fellows at Toyota. My hat is down for Mr. Taiichi Onno. I now have a better understanding of his teachings and I believe that the Toyota Production System will be the do facto standard for manufacturing in the years to follow. I wonder if it is ready for and ISO standard...

An excellent overview of the main concepts of lean manufacturing: finding waste, JIT, kanban, production leveling, flow, automation with a human touch, reduced set-up times, the "5 why", etc. Explanations are to the point and easy to understand.

What makes this book unique is that the author was THE pioneer who brought most of these concepts to life. In the last chapters of the book he does a good job at putting his approach in perspective with earlier developments at Toyota, Ford, and GM.