ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the foundation of Toyota's success and their ability over the years to sustain Lean. The Toyota precepts were introduced in 1935 and were handed down from president to president. They consist of five tenets. System thinking is a key part of any Lean implementation and is one of the building blocks for a learning organization. A goal of Lean thinking is to ultimately reduce waste and level load cyclical events. An important component of systems thinking is to drive process-focused metrics and let the results-focused metrics take care of themselves. A quality circle (QC) is formed by employees who volunteer to work together and meet at regular intervals to discuss problems and use plan–do–study–act (PDSA) to develop solutions for improvements. The most notable benefit from QC circles was the empowerment the front line has in ensuring the quality of the product they deliver.
