The Lean Thinker

One of the questions Mike Rother was trying to answer with his research that became Toyota Kata was: “What are the unseen managerial routines that lie behind Toyota’s success with continuous improvement and adaption?”

I live on an arterial street about half a mile (800 meters) from Everett Fire Department Station 5, so it isn’t unusual to hear emergency vehicles go by.

This photo says a lot about the organization.

I was working with this company mainly on their shop floor processes: Quality, Process Improvement, Daily Management – classic stuff.

Many years ago I worked with a senior manager.

The client organization was working to incorporate the Toyota Kata mindset – scientific thinking / systematic problem solving – into their daily routines.

Last fall I got to spend another week hanging out with the awesome team at Menlo Innovations in Ann Arbor.

Last week’s post about The Improvement Kata and DMAIC prompted some interesting discussions during the week, and I’d like to share some additional thoughts.

I am going to start off by acknowledging that my background with Six Sigma and its other x-Sigma flavors is mostly anecdotal.

Following last week’s post about the Toyota Kata Experiment Record we did a bit of a deep dive on the same topic on the weekly Friday Zoom call.