Conclusion: Toyota as a “Prepared Organization”

Abstract In the summer of 1984, Koichi Shimokawa1 and I met Taiichi Ohno for a long interview, and then visited the new Shiga plant of Daihatsu Motor Co., a Toyota group automaker near Kyoto.2 We had dinner with Daihatsu’s plant manager, Michikazu Tanaka, then a leading practitioner of the Toyota production system and someone who had worked very closely with Ohno. Tanaka told us that evening, “What do you think is the essence of just in time? There are three possible answers. The beginner’s answer would be that JIT is good simply because it reduces inventory cost. An intermediate-level answer is that JIT reveals production problems and triggers kaizen. But the third answer is that JIT infuses cost consciousness into all employees. When JIT keeps on forcing workers to face production problems one after another, the people finally start to see everything as a potential source of cost or productivity problems, and then seek problems actively.