Lean vs Kaizen – The foundations of the Total Productive System and Continuous improvement.

Should this be Lean vs Kaizen or Lean and Kaizen. There are people out there that heavily favor one or the other but there is plenty of cross over. Do what works. “Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own.” ~Bruce Lee. There are people reading this right now saying Lean is the way to go or Kaizen is the way to go. Does it really have to be one or the other. Can your focus be mainly in one but still learn form the other? If you are looking for similar videos try this: Need Continuous Improvement Training? Try these resources.

Lean and Kaizen Resources

Lean and Kaizen Quotes

“Sometimes no problem is a sign of a different problem” ~Mark Rosenthal author of The Lean Thinker
“The Toyota style is not to create results by working hard. It is a system that says there is no limit to people’s creativity. People don’t go to Toyota to ‘work’ they go there to ‘think’.” ~Taiichi Ohno
“A relentless barrage of ‘whys’ is the best way to prepare your mind to pierce the clouded veil of thinking caused by the status quo. Use it often.”~Shigeo Shingo
“Today’s standardization…is the necessary foundation on which tomorrow’s improvements will be based. If you think “standardization” as the best you know today, but which is to be improved tomorrow – you get somewhere. But if you think of standards as confining, then progress stops.” ~Henry Ford in 1926
“Don’t water your weeds.” ~Harvey Mackay
“Many people think that Lean is about cutting heads, reducing the work force or cutting inventory. Lean is really a growth strategy. It is about gaining market share and being prepared to enter in or create new markets.” ~Ernie Smith
“There are three kinds of leaders. Those that tell you what to do. Those that allow you to do what you want. And Lean leaders that come down to the work and help you figure it out.” ~John Shook
“Something is wrong if workers do not look around each day, find things that are tedious or boring, and then rewrite the procedures. Even last month’s manual should be out of date” ~Taiichi Ohno
“If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.” ~Henry Ford
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” ~Peter F. Drucker
“Improvement usually means doing something that we have never done before.” ~Shigeo Shingo
“Industry 4.0 is not really a revolution. It’s more an evolution. In 1970, the first personal computer was launched in the market—this was where digitalization started. It has developed through the years. Today, I think Industry 4.0 helps to drive the competitiveness of industry. We are still in development every day.”~Christian Kubis
“Many good American companies have respect for individuals, and practice Kaizen and other TPS {Toyota Production System} tools. But what is important is having all of the elements together as a system. It must be practiced every day in a very consistent manner–not in spurts–in a concrete way on the shop floor.” ~Fujio Cho, President, Toyota Motor Corporation