8 ◾ Lean Management System LMS:2012
executives asked about the book, he responded: ‘It’s Henry Ford’s book of
course—your company’s book’” (Stuelpnagel, 1993, 91). Shirouzu (2001) later
reported how James Padilla, the group vice president in charge of global
manufacturing, visited Mazda to learn “Japanese” Lean manufacturing meth-
ods. Upon Padilla’s return, Shirouzu wrote:
Here, and throughout Ford’s global operations, Mr. Padilla is try-
ing to entice assembly workers and engineers to abandon nearly all
they know about the mass manufacturing system that Henry Ford
brought to life about 90 years ago. (A1, A6)
The techniques Mr. Padilla wanted his people to learn were, however,
really the inventions or at least developments of Henry Ford and ...