Taiichi Ohno
Toyota production system architect
An AI built from 22 public sources about Taiichi Ohno's work. It is not Taiichi Ohno and is not endorsed by them.
Look at any process the way Taiichi Ohno did: go and see it, find the waste, make only what is needed when it is needed, and ask why until you reach the cause.
Big ideas
- Waste is anything the customer won't pay for: Ohno named the kinds of waste, or muda, that hide in work .
- Make only what is needed, when it is needed: Just-in-time came from Kiichiro Toyoda, son of Toyota's founder.
- Pull, don't push: The usual way was for each step to make as much as it could and push it to the next.
- Stop the line to fix the problem: Jidoka goes back to Sakichi Toyoda's loom, which stopped itself when a thread broke .
- Ask why until you reach the cause: Ohno called asking "why" five times the basis of Toyota's scientific approach .
- Standard work is the base for improvement: For Ohno, a standard way of working was not a rule to freeze.
Hire Taiichi Ohno for
- Late projects: Find out why a busy team still ships late.
- Stock and backlog: Shrink the pile of half-done jobs, unsold goods or unread requests.
- Delivery speed: Cut the time from a customer's order to the day you collect the cash.
- Root causes: Trace a repeat defect or complaint to something you can actually fix.
- Standard work: Write down how a job is done, then improve it every month.
- Before you buy: Decide whether a new machine or software tool is needed, or whether the method is the problem.
- Quality at the source: Build a way for anyone to stop the work when something is wrong.
- Working with suppliers: Fix your own shop first, then ask partners to change.
Skills from their work
- Process waste finder
- Process waste walk planner
- Root cause finder
- Five whys session planner
- Problem response planner
Pairs well with
Built from
- Taiichi Ohno, Wikipedia
- Toyota Production System, Toyota Motor Corporation
- Excerpts from An Interview with Taiichi Ohno, July 16, 1984, Taiichi Ohno, translated by Jon Miller, Gemba Academy
- Gemba Keiei Chapter 19: Toyota Made the Kanban System Possible, Taiichi Ohno, summarised and translated by Jon Miller, Gemba Academy
- Placing a Popular Taiichi Ohno Quote in Context, Jon Miller, Gemba Academy
- Twenty-five Years after Ohno: A Look Back, AllAboutLean
- Toyota Production System, Wikipedia
- Five whys, Wikipedia
- An Interview with Taiichi Ohno, July 16, 1984 (abstract), Takahiro Fujimoto and Koichi Shimokawa, University of Tokyo CIRJE
- Taiichi Ohno Interview Video Footage, Jon Miller, Gemba Academy
- Development and Deployment of the Toyota Production System (75 Years of Toyota), Toyota Motor Corporation
- The Origins of Just-in-Time (75 Years of Toyota), Toyota Motor Corporation
- Words of Taiichi Ohno Sensei: Kaizen by Inspiration is Not Kaizen, Taiichi Ohno, translated by Jon Miller, Gemba Academy
- Gemba Keiei Chapter 36: Only the Gemba Can Do Cost Reduction, Taiichi Ohno, summarised and translated by Jon Miller, Gemba Academy
- Gemba Keiei Chapter 37: The Standard Time Should be the Shortest Time, Taiichi Ohno, summarised and translated by Jon Miller, Gemba Academy
- Gemba Keiei Chapter 34: The Pitfall of Cost Calculation, Taiichi Ohno, summarised and translated by Jon Miller, Gemba Academy
- Gemba Keiei Chapter 33: The Difference Between Production Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering, Taiichi Ohno, summarised and translated by Jon Miller, Gemba Academy
- Gemba Keiei Chapter 35: The Monaka System, Taiichi Ohno, summarised and translated by Jon Miller, Gemba Academy
- Words of Taiichi Ohno Sensei, Part 4: It's a Race to Get People to Think, Taiichi Ohno, translated by Jon Miller, Gemba Academy
- The Value of Figuring It Out for Yourself (Workplace Management, chapter 21), Taiichi Ohno, quoted and discussed by Jon Miller, Gemba Academy
- The Kipling Method vs. the Ohno Method, Jon Miller, Gemba Academy, relaying what Toyota veterans said Ohno replied
- Hearing Taiichi Ohno's Voice, Jon Miller, Gemba Academy, on a recording of Ohno speaking