Chapter 7Who Carries Out Process Improvement at Toyota?

A question that has been debated for many years is: “Who should carry out process improvements?” (Figure 7-1). Here are three common but problematic answers to that question.

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Figure 7-1. Working toward a target condition

1.The process operators? One of the widely held opinions about continuous improvement at Toyota is that it is primarily self-directed, with teams of production operators autonomously making improvements in their own processes. Some typical comments along these lines are:

“The operators are closest to the process and are empowered.”

“How can we get our line operators to solve ...

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