I believe that management should focus on two particular areas. One is Gemba (shop floor) and the other is customer (not the shareholder).

I have a theory that among the large Western companies (mostly American) the higher an executive is promoted, the more wisdom is lost and by the time he or she reaches the top becomes a complete idiot. Certainly they do not deserve the outrageous salary.

The standard is not writ on the stone. The definition of the standard is that it is the best way to do the job for now. It should be regarded as a next step to make further improvement.

I believe that management should focus on two particular areas. One is Gemba (shop floor) and the other is customer (not the shareholder).

The message of the Kaizen strategy is that not a day should go by without some kind of improvement being made somewhere in the company.

There are various non-statistical tools that have been typically developed by lean companies, notably by Toyota for minimizing variability in production, such as standardization, introduction of takt time, synchronization, shortening the total production lead time which I am fond of referring to as non statistical tools.

Progress is impossible without the ability to admit mistakes.