
12 ◾ Lean Production Simplified, Third Edition
A Novel Concept
Taiichi Ohno already knew that workers were his most valuable resource.
Withholding of information or ideas, so common in the mass production
plants, would rapidly lead to disaster in the fledgling Toyota system. In the
years to come, Ohno and his team developed activities to fully involve team
members in improvement, an utterly novel idea.
A Virtue of Necessity
The Toyota Production System, or Lean production, was the solution to
Toyota’s problems. Over the next 30 years, Taiichi Ohno solved these prob-
lems one by one, and pushed his system through Toyota. Like any change
agent, Ohno ...