Lean Enterprise Institute

Toyota didn’t design its production system; it experimented its way to it, over generations. Sakichi Toyoda’s looms were the result of years of trial and error, and from them came the idea of a machine that stops itself when something goes wrong, the basis of jidoka. His son Kiichiro, who was building up a car company from scratch, set out to make only what was neede...

In Part 1 of this two-part series, we established a core operational truth: you can’t improve what you can’t see. But surfacing ...

In October, the Lean Enterprise Institute published The Work of a Chief Engineer: Inside Toyota’s Revolutionary Product Development System by Naoto Kitagawa. The author, a former chief engi...

AI model capabilities are advancing rapidly, but adoption inside established organizations is moving much more slowly. In hindsight, I don’t think that is much of a surprise.

Technical discussions in the media tend to focus on what the next generation of models will do. I have no doubt that the models will continue to improve, and tools will become easier to use. H...

For about 75 years, the chief engineer has sat at the center of how Toyota develops products. The role carries full responsibility for whether a vehicle succeeds, with almost no formal authority over the thousands of people who build it. Until now, no one who held the job had told the story from the inside.

Naoto Kitagawa did. He was chief engineer for the Camry, bB...