Toyota Production System / Lean Manufacturing

Toyota Production System
The Toyota Production System (TPS) (トヨタ生産方式) is the philosophy organizing manufacturing and logistics at Toyota, including the interaction with suppliers and customers. TPS is known more generically as Lean manufacturing. It was largely created by three men: the founder of Toyota, Sakichi Toyoda, his son Kiichiro Toyoda, and the engineer Taiichi Ohno. The main goal of the TPS is to eliminate waste (無駄, Muda). There are 7 kinds of waste targeted in the TPS.
Over-production
Motion (of operator or machine)
Waiting (of operator or machine)
Conveyance
Processing Itself
Inventory (raw material)
Correction (rework & scrap)
Toyota was able to greatly reduce leadtime and cost using the TPS, while improving quality at the same time. This enabled it to become one of the ten largest companies in the world. The TPS is a classic example of the Kaizen approach to productivity improvement. Due to this stellar success of the production philosophy many of these methods have been copied by other manufacturing companies.

Commonly used terminology in TPS:
Just In Time (ジャストインタイム) (JIT)
Jidoka (自働化) (English: Autonomation - automation with human intelligence)
Heijunka (平準化) (English: Production Smoothing)
Kaizen (改善) (English: Continuous Improvement)
Poka-yoke (ポカヨケ) (English: fail-safing - to avoid (yokeru) inadvertent errors (poka))
Kanban (看板, also かんばん) (English: Sign, Index Card)
Andon (アンドン) (English: Signboard)
Muda (無駄, also ムダ) (English: Waste)



Lean Manufacturing
Lean manufacturing is a management philosophy focusing on reduction of the seven wastes
Transportation
Inventory
Motion
Waiting time
Over-production
Processing Itself
Defective Product (Scrap in manufactured products or any type of business.)
By eliminating waste (muda), quality is improved, production time and costs are reduced.
To solve the problem of waste, Lean Manufacturing has several "tools" at its disposal. These include constant process analysis (kaizen), "pull" production (by means of kanban) and mistake-proofing (poka-yoke).
Key lean manufacturing principles include:
Pull processing: products are pulled from the consumer end, not pushed from the production end
Perfect first-time quality - quest for zero defects, revealing & solving problems at the source
Waste minimization – eliminating all activities that do not add value & safety nets, maximize use of scarce resources (capital, people and land)
Continuous improvement – reducing costs, improving quality, increasing productivity and information sharing
Flexibility – producing different mixes or greater diversity of products quickly, without sacrificing efficiency at lower volumes of production
Building and maintaining a long term relationship with suppliers through collaborative risk sharing, cost sharing and information sharing arrangements.
Lean is basically all about getting the right things, to the right place, at the right time, in the right quantity while minimizing waste and being flexible and open to change.

Lean thinking got its name from a 1990’s best seller called "The Machine That Changed the World : The Story of Lean Production". The book chronicles the transitions of automobile manufacturing from craft production to mass production to lean production.
The seminal book "Lean Thinking" by Womack and Jones, introduced five core concepts:
Specify value in the eyes of the customer
Identify the value stream and eliminate waste
Make value flow at the pull of the customer
Involve and empower employees
Continuously improve in the pursuit of perfection.
Finally, there is an understanding that Toyota's mentoring process (loosely called Senpai and Kohai relationship) so strongly supported in Japan is one of the ways to foster Lean Thinking up and down the organizational structure. The closest equivalent to Toyota's mentoring process is the concept of Lean Sensei, which encourages companies, organizations, and teams to seek out outside, third-party "Sensei" that can provide unbiased advice and coaching, as indicated in Jim Womack's Lean Thinking book.
Experienced kaizen members at Toyota, for example, often bring up the concept of "Senpai, Kohai," and "Sensei," because they strongly feel that transferring of Toyota culture down and across the Toyota can only happen when more experienced Toyota Sensei continuously coaches and guides the less experienced lean champions. Unfortunately, most lean practitioners in North America focuses on the tools and methodologies of lean, versus the philosophy and culture of lean. Some exceptions include Shingijitsu Consulting out of Japan, which is made up of ex-Toyota managers, and Lean Sensei International based in North America, which coaches lean through Toyota-style cultural experience.