The last post What Happened Detroit started out as this post but I had to get a few things off my chest.

As stated in the previous article the thing that is setting the Asian companies apart from the American companies is that they have taken our system and made it better. They have been doing this for a long time starting with electronics. Remember when Sony was seen as a totally inferior and cheep alternative to anything else? Now it is one of the best and one of the most affordable in the electronics industry. There was a time when something like the iPod would have been made in the United States due to quality control, but now they are made in Taiwan, which by the way produces 80% of the worlds laptops. Now they are doing it with cars, and they have been for a while. If Toyota is not the biggest car company on the planet, it soon will be (there seems to be some debate as to whether they have over taken GM or not).

So how did Toyota do this? Look at the Toyota Way. It is a set of 14 principles that are the management and production system of the Toyota Company. It creates not only a vision of the company that everyone involved can buy into, but it creates a company philosophy. Something that Detroit has been unwilling to do since Lee Iaccoca left.

Here are at the 14 principles

1. Base management decisions on long-term philosophy even at the expense of short-term financial goals
2. Create a continuous process flow to bring problems to the surface
3. Use “pull” systems to avoid overproduction
4. Level out the workload (heijunka)
5. Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time
6. Standardized tasks and processes are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee empowerment
7. Use visual control so no problems are hidden
8. Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes
9. Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy and teach it to others
10. Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company’s philosophy
11. Respect your extended network of partners and suppliers by challenging them and helping them improve
12. Go an see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation (Genchi Genbutsu)
13. Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options; implement decisions rapidly (Nemawashi)
14. Become a learning organization through relentless reflection (hansei) and continuous improvement (kaizen)

Lets break these down into how these can help you as both workers, managers, and leaders. For more of an explanation of these see the Wikipedia post.  Tomorrow I will break it down Coach Kip style.

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