No one has more trouble than the person who claims to have no trouble

All we are doing is looking at the time line, from the moment the customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash. And we are reducing the time line by reducing the non-value adding wastes.

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.

It takes great effort to follow the rules of a pull system ... thus a half-hearted introduction of a pull system brings a hundred harms and not a single gain.

If you are going to do kaizen continuouslyyou've got to assume that things are a mess. Too many people just assume that things are all right the way they are. Aren't you guys convinced that the way you're doing things is the right way? That's no way to get anything done. Kaizen is about changing the way things are. If you assume that things are all right the way they are, you can't do kaizen. So change something!

Progress cannot be generated when we are satisfied with existing situations.

The more inventory a company has, the less likely they will have what they need.