Taiichi Ohno described Just In Time as “ちょうど間に合う [Choudo - Mani - Au]” in Japanese. Choudo = Just Au = Fit, match The tricky one is this...

When you jump off the cliff without a bungee cord, you don’t call it a “bungee jump.” You call it suicide. So what is the “bungee cord”...

Supply curve. A simple concept of “Market” in economics. As the price goes up, the quantity of supply goes up. As demand changes, the...

”Just In Time” As this Toyota Production system terminology gets popular, many misunderstand its philosophy. Just In Time is not just...

Some folks started “Just In Case” operations after the pandemic and war. I don’t follow their conversations, but based on what I...

Fatigue. A natural phenomenon that we all have as a human beings. And operations have to deal with this phenomenon systematically. Some...

The Toyota way 2001 had two key points. Respecting Humanity “Chie” and Kaizen The word “Chie” is typically translated as “Wisdom.”...

Muda. Waste. Non-value-adding activities that we must eliminate. Core thinking of TPS. There is nothing wrong with the definitions. Every...

A Japanese word that means to deploy across the organization knowledge or know-how. When there is a great Kaizen, as a business, you want...

“Respect for People.” This a common phrase that I see a lot. Every time I see this, I get puzzled. My coach said the following. “Respect...

As Kaizen became an international business word, things got formal. I have seen some forms that people need to be filled out. There are...

I searched “batch production.” There are many explanations of the meaning and calculation. But I thought about what is the proper...

We’ve all heard the age-old debate initiated by Taiichi Ohno: batch production vs. one-piece flow production. There is one problem with...

I encountered many strange situations as I worked with many Single Minutes Exchange of Dies (SMED). Please understand. SMED is not a...

Single-minute exchange of Die. Powerful methodology to reduce the changeover time. The critical part of this methodology is to move works...

When I was working on a SMED, we first defined the datum. As we observed the changeover, a question came up. “Why do we need to move this...

Single Minutes Exchange of Dies (SMED). A technic that is the core of lean developed by Shigeo Shingo. But what I learned from my coach...

2023/2/17 JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industry “canceled” the launch of the H3 rocket since one of the support boosters did not ignite. The...

Rebuild of high-floor warehouse

Taiichi Ohno got some hints about “Just In Time” from American supermarkets. Supermarkets are everyday things today. But how was it when...