Quotes in Toyota Production System

Why not make the work easier and more interesting so that people do not have to sweat?
The Toyota style is not to create results by working hard. It is a system that says there is no limit to people's creativity. People don't go to Toyota to 'work' they go there to 'think'

The key to the Toyota Way and what makes Toyota stand out is not any of the individual elements - but what is important is having all the elements together as a system. It must be practiced every day in a very consistent manner, not in spurts.

People who can't understand numbers are useless. The gemba where numbers are not visible is also bad. However, people who only look at the numbers are the worst of all.

Toyota's real achievement is not merely the creation and use of the tools themselves; it is in making all its work a series of nested, ongoing experiments, be the work as routine as installing seats in cars or as complex, idiosyncratic, and large scale as designing and launching a new model or factory.

Standards should not be forced down from above but rather set by the production workers themselves.

Don't look with your eyes, look with your feet. Don't think with you head, think with your hands.

My first move as the manager of the machine shop was to introduce standardized work.

The name “kanban” came after we had been using the concept for a while. We came up with the name when we were preparing to undergo the audit for the Deming Prize in 1964.

When you go out into the workplace, you should be looking for things that you can do for your people there. You’ve got no business in the workplace if you’re just there to be there. You’ve got to be looking for changes you can make for the benefit of the people who are working there.

There is not a day I don't think about what Dr. Deming meant to us. Deming is the core of our management.