Works
- Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production, Japanese edition; English edition, Productivity Press, 1988, 1978
In Thinking Tools
Known for
The Toyota executive regarded as the father of the Toyota Production System, built on just-in-time production and autonomation (jidoka), and the author of the seven wastes. His book calls asking why five times the basis of Toyota's scientific approach, a practice that went back to Sakichi Toyoda.
Caveat: The five whys has been criticized, including by a former Toyota executive, as too shallow to reach root causes reliably, and different investigators often reach different answers.