Toyota's Lean (and now Green)Production Machine -the Story

Back in January, I featured the Toyota FT-HS hybrid sports car. Just one of many examples where Toyota is leading the world in green technologies, and it is likely to continue to lead. This certainly comes as no surprise to me now, as I come to finish a book about the phenomenal rise of Toyota in world class car manufacture.



The book entitled : "The Machine That Changed The World" reads a little like a recently discovered success story. It was, in fact first published in 1990. So, as I curled up in front of a warm fire , thus fending-off the still lingering chill of an early spring evening, I found myself surprised to be absorbed by a management classic on best manufacturing practice rather than a mystery thriller or 'whodunnit'. The surpise, too, was that the Toyota success story chronicled a long history of achievement, and yet, in 1990 (now 17 years ago),Toyota was only half the size of General Motors. The reissued book still stands the test of time as a testament to monumental success. As the book cover blurb says,"Today, Toyota is passing GM as the world's largest automaker and is the most consistently successful global enterprise of the past fifty years."

Essentially, the authors of the book have traced , in full but fascinating detail, the roots of a production system which maximises the creation of value by human effort. It is easy to draw a first impression that the story is all about a titanic struggle between the US and Japan to create industrial excellence and supremacy. This would not be right, and the authors reject the misconception. It is more about the emergence of a global production environment where lean production has taken-on mass production,and won.

So it was that the Americans,Ford and Sloan , created mass production which was emulated in industries beyond automotive. The Japanese,Toyoda and Ohno, built the lean production system, the techniques of which were and are now used by other industries. In 1990, the authors were looking forward to a better world of lean production. In their Afterword 2007, they quite appropriately for a continuing complex study have modified some of their thinking in the years between first publication and now, but they still uphold the lean production system to be the clear ongoing winner. This a great story. You should get this if you are business owner,manager, or student; or you simply enjoy reading how things work in a climate of excellence around the world.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 Ind