Books: The Toyota Way
The Toyota Way - Jeffrey K. Liker
I read this book based on a post in Hal Macomber's blog. I have been reading about lean in the past with interest and so my antennae are up on the subject. This book is an excellent overview of Toyota's approach to business.
The book starts off by setting the context of its examination of Toyota by giving some history about the company and some of its values. It then presents two brief case studies of successful Toyota projects, the development of the Lexus and the development of the Prius.
The middle part of the book goes into detail on the 14 principles that make up The Toyota Way. This is the meat of the book. Liker emphasizes the fact that all 14 points are important and perhaps this is the reason why many other companies that try to make their organizations more lean fail. They look at the tools and the processes that Toyota uses and try to copy those aspects without the foundational elements that the success of those aspects are built on. When they don't see dramatic results right away, they abandon the effort and go back to their old ways.
The final part of the book are two brief chapters on applying the principles in the book to your organization. This part seemed to me to be too brief but perhaps there is more detail on this in The Toyota Way Fieldbook, which I have put in my reading queue for the future.
This book gave me a lot of food for thought about how I and the organization I work for can become more successful. Recommended.
2:45:02 PM 
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