Kaizen is the most common (often mispronounced) thing people think of when they head Toyota or Lean. Author James Clear wrote "Atomic Habits" on the principle of applying Kaizen in your personal life: just get 1% better everyday.

Kaizen is the culmination of Deming's Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle. It is the natural evolution of the Scientific Method in a business environment.

Some practioners call it a "kaizen event" or "kaizen blitz" to rapidly impement changes in the office or on the production floor.

To Diadochi, Continuous Improvement is failure and learning. It is constant pilot programs. It is asking Why? It is getting better every day.

“Progress cannot be generated when we are satisfied with existing situations.” ― Taiichi Ohno

Mendomi means taking care of coworkers like they are family. Most small businesses operate as a family and that is why they succeed. It all comes back to the people, the ones creating value in a company.

Diadochi is committed to continuing or instituting a profit sharing schema so that everyone shares in the company's success.

“Team members are the only appreciating asset we have. Everything else starts depreciating from the moment we buy it.” - Toyota Saying

The customer is not always right. Customer First means only delivering what the customer needs - nothing more, nothing less. It means producing and designing to meet a specific want or need. Customer satisfaction and transparency enable relationships that become mutually beneficial partnerships over time. Customers are both internal and external as well as upstream and downstream from value-added work.

"If I had asked people want they wanted, they would've said faster horses" - Henry Ford

Our managing partner Jake Linton is a disciple of both Edward Deming and Taiicho Ohno. Therefore, you will never hear him talk about Six-Sigma as it allows 3.4 defects per million opportunities. Why would we plan to have defects?

At Toyota, Jake learned the JKK method to ensure downstream quality in every step of every process. JKK, Ji Kotei Kanketsu, is a TPS tool but it is also a mindset shift that ensures employees build quality into every process. This build a learning organization when other tools such as Andons and Pokeyokes can be deployed for Total Quality Control.

Obeya, Gentani, PowerBI.

A leader must see the situation to properly manage. This Japanese military maxim worked its way into the work culture during the Meiji Restoration as Samurai became business leaders and merchants.

As an owner/operator, Jake is comitted to being on-site, everyday to lead the team. He wants to walk the floor to understand problems and opportunites. A War Room, or Obeya, will be established to visually track and measure status.

"Go and Get Your Boots On" - Toyota Kentucky Saying

In the PDCA mindset, it is not enough to get better and better. You must analyze why. Policy deployment leads to milestone development which enables reflection. American culture lacks the acknowledgement of one's own mistakes. To become a learning organization, it is fundamental to reflect on wins, losses, lessons learned and to document as institutional knowledge.

Kanban. 5S. Standard Work. Jidoka. Takt Time. Andon. Toyota Business Practice. One-Piece Flow. Just-in-Time.

Why is TPS at the bottom of the list?

The Toyota Production System is a set of tools; not a management philosophy. These tools and tactics will not work without the underlying strategy, culture and strong support of management. Toyota has freely offer training and courses on these tools for decades yet few very companies have completed the "lean turnaround" in the words of Art Bryne.