Page 420 - The Toyota Way Fieldbook

Chapter 19

Lean Implementation

Strategies and Tactics

Where Should You Start?

You know your company needs an injection of lean. There’s waste everywhere.
Upon serious reflection, you pretty much failed most of the tests. The culture is
nowhere near the level that we describe as the Toyota Way. Leadership is not
there, you don’t have effective work groups, functional groups are at war most
of the time, problem-solving processes are superficial, and you’ve tried some
lean tools here and there with good short-term results but no staying power.
Welcome to most of the world. Even Toyota has to work hard to maintain
the Toyota Way, and it has particularly struggled to spread the true Toyota Way
outside of Japan. It is continuous hard work.
So where do you start? In this chapter we talk strategy and tactics. You need
to decide where to focus actual activities implementing lean. You need a plan.
There is a great deal to do and many different ways to do it.
Returning to the 4P model, we are arguing that all four levels of philosophy,
process, people, and problem solving are intertwined in complex ways. It is a
system. So where does that get you? Unfortunately, reality being what it is, you
need to start someplace. Even if you’ve been at lean for some years but it hasn’t
taken hold, you have to start someplace to reinvigorate lean. You have at least
four choices:
1. Philosophy. You can start with an off-site meeting of top leaders and
clearly define your vision for becoming a lean enterprise.
2. Process. You can begin implementing lean correctly as a connected value
stream, as we describe in Part III of this book.

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