CHAPTER 7

People

A BUSINESS ORGANIZATION is like the human body The human body. contains autonomic nerves that work without regard to human wishes and motor nerves that react to human command to control muscles.

At Toyota, we began to think about how to install an autonomic nervous system in our own rapidly growing business organization. In our production plan, an autonomic nerve means making judgments autonomously at the lowest possible level; for example, when to stop production, what sequence to follow in making parts, or when overtime is necessary to produce the required amount.

Ohno (1988, p. 45)

People are fundamental to lean. It is through people that the lean system learns and improves. To fully utilize the skills and ability of the ...

Get An Introduction to Lean Work Design now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.