Anyone who witnessed the rebirth of Chrysler under Lee Iacocca knows that one of the best product decisions he made was to invest in the K-Car, the basis for all the new passenger cars introduced...
When I think about Toyota and how it operates, I keep on coming back to quality guru W. Edwards Deming’s famous edict: “Constancy of purpose.” Constancy of purpose explains why, in any given year, if...
We get a flavor of what distinguishes Toyota from excerpts of its mission statement for its North American operations compared with that of Ford . Ford’s mission statement seems reasonable. The company is concerned about...
One of my favorite discussions of the history of the development of the Japanese automobile industry is a article by Michael Cusumano, The Japanese Automobile Industry (Cusumano, 1985), that contrasts in detail the evolution of...
Toyota understands that maintaining the jobs of associates is part of its obligation to the community and society. A great example of this is the case of Toyota’s longest-running manufacturing operation in the United States—a...
In the early 1980s, Toyota formed a joint venture with GM. It was Toyota’s first overseas plant and they did not want to go it alone. They agreed to teach GM the principles of the...
I asked Jim Press how he learned the Toyota Way. He explained that the reason he joined the company was partly to move on from an environment at Ford where there was constant tension between...
Can a modern corporation thrive in a capitalistic world and be profitable while doing the right thing, even if it means that short-term profits are not always the first goal? I believe that Toyota’s biggest...