Where there is no Standard there can be no Kaizen

We are doomed to failure without a daily destruction of our various preconceptions.

The slower but consistent tortoise causes less waste and is more desirable than the speedy hare that races ahead and then stops occasionally to doze. The Toyota Production System can be realized only when all the workers become tortoises.

I’m proud to be Japanese and I wanted my country to succeed. I believed my system was a way that could help us become a modern industrial nation. That is why I had no problem with sharing it with other Japanese companies, even my biggest competitors.

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'.

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

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