Book SummaryThe Toyota Way, by Jeffrey K. Liker

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Toyota Way

The Toyota Way is a business efficiency classic. Its first edition, published in 2003, rode a wave of intense interest in Toyota’s highly efficient manufacturing processes, which became known as lean manufacturing. Author Jeffrey K. Liker’s goal was to clarify Toyota’s approach and rectify the mistakes he saw people making when they emulated the system. The Toyota Way reached a wide audience within and outside manufacturing.

The Toyota Way was the first of Liker’s 15 books on Toyota. In the book’s second edition, published in 2020, Liker reorganized the presentation of some of the principles, updated some of his examples, and explained how Toyota managed recent global crises. This guide is based on the second edition.

About This Guide

The book is organized according to 14 principles. In this guide, we condense and combine these principles according to the level of the company at which they apply. We begin with a brief history of Toyota and lean manufacturing (compiling this from information that’s woven throughout the book), and then discuss the relevant principles at three key levels:

1. The genba (on the factory floor): This section describes the nuts and bolts of Toyota manufacturing processes, including kaizen (continuous improvement), one-piece flow, and minimizing waste.
2. The management level: This section discusses the importance of respecting people, including ensuring job security for employees, challenging workers, and promoting leaders from inside.
3. The level of the whole organization: This section describes the overall vision that guides Toyota and the ways in which this vision is integrated throughout the company.

Liker has been criticized for presenting an overly positive view of Toyota’s business practices—when the book came out, even the president of Toyota acknowledged to his staff that the book “is what we should be, but better than we are.” We temper Liker’s enthusiasm by pointing out instances in which Toyota’s behavior in practice doesn’t quite measure up to the polished image he presents. We also include information on the Japanese cultural background that helps...

The Toyota Way Summary Toyota’s Lean Practices at the _Genba_

At the heart of Toyota’s approach to efficiency is the concept of kaizen (continuous improvement). Liker describes kaizen as small, incremental improvements in speed and quality that over time add up to large gains. Many assembly line processes are repeated thousands of times a day, so a reduction of even a few seconds for each repetition adds up quickly.

Toyota’s approach to kaizen involves two stages:

1. A modeling stage, in which you sketch out the stages of the manufacturing process, identify wastes, and calculate production timeframes. This stage is relatively short.
2. A practical implementation stage, in which you test and refine the improvements identified in the modeling stage. This stage is detailed, iterative, and ongoing.

In this section, we’ll introduce the theoretical tools that Toyota uses to model assembly line processes. We’ll then discuss how Toyota workers implement these processes and experiment with them on the shop floor.

The Modeling Stage

Modeling Tools: Pull Systems, the Value Stream, and One-Piece Flow

As Liker explains, Toyota models its production line as a “pull system”: **a system in which customer demand for a...

The Toyota Way Summary Toyota’s Lean Practices at the Management Level

In this section, we’ll examine the second level of Toyota’s approach: how Toyota manages its people. We’ll cover how Toyota shows respect for its employees, promotes leaders from the inside, prioritizes teamwork and consensus, and extends relationship-building outside the organization to the whole supply chain.

Toyota Respects Employees

According to Liker, Toyota shows respect to its employees by protecting their jobs, challenging them, and supporting them in their efforts to improve.

Protecting workers’ jobs. Toyota prioritizes job security for its employees, even through significant internal and external challenges. For example, during the Great Recession of 2008-2009, while other car manufacturers were letting thousands of people go, Toyota didn’t lay off any members of its regular workforce. Instead, team members worked intensively on kaizen when they weren’t needed on the factory floor. Managers also privately agreed to salary reductions so no team members would be laid off. In the course of normal business, employees whose roles are no longer needed as a result of routine kaizen are redeployed to other assembly lines.

Challenging employees. At Toyota,...

The Toyota Way Summary Toyota’s Lean Practices at the Whole-Organization Level

In this section, we’ll cover aspects of Toyota’s approach to business that operate at the level of the whole organization. We’ll cover why Toyota is cautious when introducing new technology, how it ensures that goals are consistent throughout the company, and how long-term systems thinking governs high-level decision-making.

Toyota Takes a Cautious Approach to Technology

Liker writes that Toyota sees large investments in technology, for example specialized robots, as risky. The company learned this lesson in 1991, when a new, highly automated Lexus plant had to be shut down due to an economic downturn. This mistake taught Toyota that technology should support people, not replace them, and the company is now much more selective in using new technology. Simpler tasks that need limited space can be delegated to robots, but for more complicated tasks, people are a more flexible resource.

(Shortform note: Some commentators have suggested that Tesla made the same miscalculation, relying too much on automation and failing to appreciate the advantages of human...

The Toyota Way Summary Conclusion

Throughout the book, Liker shares practical advice on implementing lean systems that he’s gleaned from many years working with Toyota and serving as a TPS consultant. We’ve compiled and summarized this advice here, along with additional tips for applying lean principles outside the manufacturing sector.

Practical Advice for Implementing Lean Systems

To implement lean systems in a business for the first time, Liker recommends the following:

1. Tailor it carefully to your business. Replicating or benchmarking Toyota processes misses the point. As you problem-solve and improve, your version of lean will grow to fit your own business perfectly. It may not look anything like Toyota’s version.
2. Start with a cleanup. A big cleanup (ideally using the 5S method) allows you to visually monitor the changes. However, the cleanup is only the beginning.
3. Tackle heijunka early. Uneven production is the cause of many wastes. Evening out production is challenging, but doing this first will save time in the long term.
4. Start small and be patient. Pilot lean ideas by creating a one-piece flow cell for a small part of the assembly line. Experiment with _kaizen...

Shortform Exercise: Test Drive Kaizen

Liker calls one-time kaizen (continuous improvement) bursts “spot kaizen.” Try “spot kaizen” on a process in your life.

Write down a task that you do often that you’d like to make more efficient. (For example: making a coffee; taking a shower; writing an email; getting ready for work.)