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The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer 1st Edition
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How to speed up business processes, improve quality, and cut costs in any industry
In factories around the world, Toyota consistently makes the highest-quality cars with the fewest defects of any competing manufacturer, while using fewer man-hours, less on-hand inventory, and half the floor space of its competitors. The Toyota Way is the first book for a general audience that explains the management principles and business philosophy behind Toyota's worldwide reputation for quality and reliability.
Complete with profiles of organizations that have successfully adopted Toyota's principles, this book shows managers in every industry how to improve business processes by:
- Eliminating wasted time and resources
- Building quality into workplace systems
- Finding low-cost but reliable alternatives to expensive new technology
- Producing in small quantities
- Turning every employee into a qualitycontrol inspector
From the Publisher
Dr. Jeffrey K. Liker is a professor of industrial and operations engineering at the University of Michigan and cofounder and director of the Japan Technology Management Program at the University of Michigan.
From the Back Cover
Fewer man-hours. Less inventory. The highest quality cars with the fewest defects of any competing manufacturer. In factories around the globe, Toyota consistently raises the bar for manufacturing, product development, and process excellence. The result is an amazing business success story: steadily taking market share from price-cutting competitors, earning far more profit than any other automaker, and winning the praise of business leaders worldwide.
The Toyota Way reveals the management principles behind Toyota's worldwide reputation for quality and reliability. Dr. Jeffrey Liker, a renowned authority on Toyota's Lean methods, explains how you can adopt these principles--known as the "Toyota Production System" or "Lean Production"--to improve the speed of your business processes, improve product and service quality, and cut costs, no matter what your industry.
Drawing on his extensive research on Toyota, Dr. Liker shares his insights into the foundational principles at work in the Toyota culture. He explains how the Toyota Production System evolved as a new paradigm of manufacturing excellence, transforming businesses across industries. You'll learn how Toyota fosters employee involvement at all levels, discover the difference between traditional process improvement and Toyota's Lean improvement, and learn why companies often think they are Lean--but aren't.
The fourteen management principles of the Toyota Way create the ideal environment for implementing Lean techniques and tools. Dr. Liker explains each key principle with detailed, examples from Toyota and other Lean companies on how to:
- Foster an atmosphere of continuous improvement and learning
- Create continuous process "flow" to unearth problems
- Satisfy customers (and eliminate waste at the same time)
- Grow your leaders rather than purchase them
- Get quality right the first time
- Grow together with your suppliers and partners for mutual benefit
What can your business learn from Toyota?
- How to double or triple the speed of any business process
- How to build quality into workplace systems
- How to eliminate the huge costs of hidden waste
- How to turn every employee into a quality control inspector
- How to dramatically improve your products and services!
The Toyota Way, explain's Toyota's unique approach to Lean--the 14 management principles and philosophy that drive Toyota's quality and efficiency-obsessed culture. You'll gain valuable insights that can be applied to any organization and any business process, whether in services or manufacturing. Professor Jeffrey Liker has been studying Toyota for twenty years, and was given unprecedented access to Toyota executives, employees and factories, both in Japan and the United States, for this landmark work. The book is full of examples of the 14 fundamental principles at work in the Toyota culture, and how these principles create a culture of continuous learning and improvement. You'll discover how the right combination of long-term philosophy, process, people, and problem solving can transform your organization into a Lean, learning enterprise--the Toyota Way.
About the Author
- ISBN-100071392319
- ISBN-13978-0071392310
- Edition1st
- PublisherMcGraw Hill
- Publication dateJanuary 7, 2004
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions6.2 x 1.1 x 9.2 inches
- Print length330 pages
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Product details
- Publisher : McGraw Hill; 1st edition (January 7, 2004)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 330 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0071392319
- ISBN-13 : 978-0071392310
- Item Weight : 1.44 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.2 x 1.1 x 9.2 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #71,590 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #11 in Quality Control (Books)
- #15 in Transportation Industry (Books)
- #905 in Business Management (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author

Dr. Jeffrey K. Liker is Professor Emeritus of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan and President of Liker Lean Advisors. He is author of the international best-seller, The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer, 2004 (26 languages, over 1 million copies sold), and has coauthored nine other books about Toyota including The Toyota Way to Service Excellence (2016), Designing the Future (2018), and The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership. His articles and books have won thirteen Shingo Prizes for Research Excellence. Recently he has collaborated with Mike Rother to study and write about Toyota Kata. In 2012 he was inducted into the Association of Manufacturing Excellence Hall of Fame and in 2016 inducted into the Shingo Academy. He plays golf, watches football and basketball, and resumed learning classical guitar after a thirty year break. His wife Deb and daughter Emma support his writing and his son Jesse is his toughest critic and best editor.
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Scattered throughout the text are descriptions of how and why other firms have failed to succeed in adopting lean manufacturing or "The Toyota Way". They include: lack of senior management involvement or commitment, focus on tools/techniques without an emphasis on culture, overemphasis on cost reduction, lack of discipline to sustain flow improvements, emphasis on format/rules in ISO 9000, inappropriate outsourcing, supplier abuse, and an overly narrow focus in six sigma on statistical techniques applied by experts. The book's insights and stories are valuable, but not totally persuasive.
The text provides good historical and contemporary background on Toyota's quality system and progress. It also describes and illustrates more than 30 of the quality tools and techniques in a non-technical manner. The book is well-written and well-organized, covering a massive amount of material effectively.
In addition to the many "best practices" quality techniques adopted by most Japanese and leading western firms today, Toyota emphasizes a few other management techniques which combine to make its approach unique. Within the context of "14 management principles", the author explains the value of cultural support for tools, the role of standardization as the basis for cumulative learning, the centrality of engineering and production, the use of appropriate technology, the benefits of experiential learning, the rationale for unit of one production, the role of inventory and goals in creating challenges to solve, the short-term blending of push and pull techniques, the extent of fail-safe practices, the nature of an enabling bureaucracy and the need to maintain key internal capabilities. The author does not always explain "why" these choices are necessary or exactly how they add value.
The author closes with an insightful list of "13 Tips for Transitioning Your Company to a Lean Enterprise". Dr. Liker is an unapologetic true believer in "The Toyota Way". His advice to those who do not share his commitment is the weakest part of a very highly valuable reference work on Toyota and Lean Production. "[Non-committed] top leaders should pick and choose from whatever tools are out there to improve processes for the short term, make a bundle of money, and go do something else. This is tantamount to admitting the company will never be a learning enterprise, or a great company, and it is only interested in cutting and slashing waste to look good for the short term."
I had a 2007 Toyota Camry and I doubt I would ever buy another one. It never got the gas mileage I was promised (oh yeah that was by a car lot) plus it wore out way too quickly. However, my review is on Dr Liker's book and not Toyota itself.
He clearly showed a passion for a company who on some level was committed to quality at some point. That is what you want to learn from, not from what Toyota may or may not have devolved too.
One piece flow: You can and better implement that in any business.
Reducing waste: You can and better implement that in any business.
Employee involvement: You can and better implement that in any business.
Leveling workflow: You can and better implement that in any business.
Make Mistakes: You can and better implement that in any business (or you aren't trying hard enough).
Continuous Improvement: You can and better implement that in any business (another reviewer said that its better to change lots of things, and the two are not mutually exclusive - the book says something like "queue where you have to, but otherwise get rid of queues" which would apply to changes also).
Standardized processes: You can and better implement that in any business. (This is why you go to eat at mom and pop restaurants and they are great when chef mom is there, but suck when they are off for the day.)
I have learned a lot from The Toyota Way and I have implemented some of the things and they have helped our business substantially.
Great book, the criticisms of Toyota are more than warranted, but if you are imaginative, you can use the tools in this book to help your business. Maybe you won't use all of them, but if you use 1 or 2 you will have paid for the price of this book many times over.
(If Toyota wants to improve their cars, they need to buy this book and start working at the tail which is the car dealership and bring the Toyota Way to the sales process there first, then move down the line to the factory.)
Top reviews from other countries
These principles can be applied to anything that needs managing from your own home life to the NHS!!!
When British industry and institutions like the NHS are crying out for resources and efficiency savings it is astounding that they don’t take a leaf out of this book!
Given the vast savings Toyota made by analysing and eliminating waste and reviewing every process in detail, any inefficient organisation cannot fail to benefit from copying them and reaping the rewards! This is a sobering read for anyone in management. Don’t be fooled by the usual lame management failure excuses, ‘lessons will be learnt’ etc. Why not avoid them? Toyota are No. 1 for a very good reason, they don’t accept the status quo - ‘There’s Always a Better Way!’ And they find it first. Unlike many British institutions, they lionise the whistleblower and sort out the problem before it costs in money, reputation, inefficiencies or harm to the customer. It’s all about doing the right thing! Without doubt an inspiring and incentivising tome. A ‘MUST READ’ FOR EVERYONE IN MANAGEMENT!
Equally enlightening is the ‘companion’ book ‘Toyota Culture: The Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way’ by the same author(s).












