Activity to see has caught our attention in many ways. This is why many languages have many words to describe “see.” See, look, watch,...

Zen 【禅】 and Kaizen 【改善】. English alphabets are similar but two different topics. Yet, there is a concept that connects the two. The...

Once in a while, I ran into people who quote Taiichi Ohno saying the following: “In a production plant operation, data are highly...

Many elementary schools in Japan have a statue of Sontoku Ninomiya. Many, such as Sakichi Toyoda, believed in Ninomiya’s philosophy,...

“When you see data, think of it as uncertain (or dangerous).” Kaoru Ishikawa, father of Total Quality Control (TQC) A powerful quote by...

QC Process Table. It is often mentioned as part of Total Quality Management, but there is little mention of the link to the Standardized...

In the chapter where Taiichi Ohno talks about standardized work, he concludes that applying standardized work correctly will develop...

I often ran into the following conditions; “We have standards. But we don’t practice Kaizen.” 🤔 Are we saying that the standards are...

This post is about a brief history of 5S in Japanese factories. This will ignore some philosophical aspects or activities outside...

You spend so much energy & time on your 5S. But you don’t see a result. I have posted in the past that “Seiri【整理】” is about; 1️⃣ Organize...

“Just In Time” production stops every time a natural disaster hits. Then, there is this argument to keep more inventory comes up. Here is...

Since my last post was about Zen【善】 inside Kaizen, this post is about Kai【改】. As I looked deeper into this symbol, it reminded me of my...

Kaizen【改善】 = Continuous Improvement We have used this translation for decades. I have used it. Many others have used it. Once in a while,...

Kanban means signboard for typical Japanese. But originally, it wasn’t called Kanban. It was called something else. And the original...

It is said that Kanban started by getting a hint from the supermarket. When we go to a supermarket, customers pick what they want. They...

The history of “Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)” starts from what is currently Denso, a Toyota group company. When we look at their...

名古屋高等工業学校 編『名古屋高等工業学校一覧 自昭和8年至昭和9年』1934年1月30日、44頁。NDLJP:1448625/118 “Team Leader” Many have copied the title “team leader” because of the...

Whatever the origin of this concept, Toyota converted this concept to represent customer demand. By dividing total available time by the...

One of the standardized work documents. Despite its importance, we don’t talk about this as often. This sheet is full of Toyota...

“Poka” originally comes from a bad play made during the game of Shogi (Japanese chess) or Igo. There was a bad play made in a recent...