Toyota's Kaizen: The Philosophy of Continuous Improvement That Transformed an Industry
In 1950, Toyota was a struggling Japanese car company. American manufacturers like Ford and GM were giants. They had scale, capital, technology. Toyota had none of that. But they had something else: Kaizen. 改善 (kai = change, zen = good) Continuous improvement. Not big, dramatic changes. Not revolutionary breakthroughs. Just small improvements. Every day. By everyone. Over decades, those small improvements compounded into dominance. By 2008, Toyota became the world’s largest automaker. ...