Jeffrey Liker – författare

The bestselling guide to Toyota’s legendary philosophy and production system—updated with important new frameworks for driving innovation and quality in your business

One of the most impactful business guides published in the 21st Century, The Toyota Way played an outsized role in launching the continuous-improvement movement that continues unabated today. 

Multiple Shingo Award-winning management and operations expert Jeffrey K. Liker provides a deep dive into Toyota’s world-changing processes, showing how you can learn from it to develop your own improvement program that fits your conditions. Thanks in large part to this book, managers across the globe are creating workforces and systems that produce the highest-quality products and services, establish and retain customer loyalty, and drive business profitability and sustainability. Now, Liker has thoroughly updated his classic guide to include:

Completely revised data and updated information about Toyota’s approach to competitiveness in the new world of mobility and smart technologyIllustrative examples from manufacturing and service organizations that have learned and improved from the Toyota WayA fresh approach to leadership modelsThe brain science and skills for learning to think scientificallyHow Toyota applies Hoshin Kanri, a planning process that aligns objectives at all levels and marries them to business strategy

Organized into thematic sections covering the various aspects of the Toyota Way—including Philosophy, Processes, People, and Problem Solving—this unparalleled guide details the 14 key principles for building the foundation of a powerful improvement system and managing it for ultimate competitive advantage.     

With The Toyota Way, you have an inspiration and a model of how to set a direction, continuously improve and learn at all levels, continually "flow" value to satisfy customers, improve your leadership, and get quality right the first time.

Your hands-on guide to the secrets of Toyota's success! Jeffrey Liker first revealed the management principles Toyota's worldwide reputation for quality and reliability in the international bestseller "The Toyota Way". Now, he and Toyota veteran David Meier take those lessons a step further with "The Toyota Way Fieldbook". You'll receive the diagnostic tools, worksheets, and exercises - many adapted from Toyota originals - so you can craft the most effective approach for your organization. Learn how to develop a long-term philosophy of cost reduction, build a culture that stops to fix problems quickly, develop leaders that live your system, and transform your company into a true lean learning organization that continuously improves, meets the needs of its customers, and positions itself for long-term success.Most importantly, you'll understand the thinking behind lean tools and approaches so you can implement Toyota's 4P Model for success in your organization: Philosophy - the company is a vehicle for adding value to customers, society, the community, and its associates; Process - when leaders follow the right process they get the right results, including long-term cost-reduction and quality improvement; People and Partners - add value to an organization by challenging its people and partners to grow and become more skilled and confident; and, Problem solving - continuously solve root problems to drive organizational learning.

A lean blueprint for creating long-term sustainability the Toyota way!

Winner of the 2012 Shingo Research and Professional Publications Award

During Toyota’s highly publicized recalls of 2009 and 2010, the legendary carmaker’s 60-year-old reputation for operational excellence was put under the microscope. Business pundits wondered out loud if Toyota’s quality levels had decreased dramatically, while the harshest critics predicted the end of the company as we know it. For the most part, the government’s findings absolved Toyota of serious defects and accidents, and Toyota recovered rapidly—but mistakes were made, which showed that Toyota is not perfect. In fact, there is always opportunity for improvement in every process.

In his bestselling business management classic The Toyota Way, Jeffrey Liker introduced the world to the foundational principles that have made Toyota the envy of companies around the world. Now, in The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement, Liker teams up with former Toyota production engineer James Franz to explain the underlying thinking behind continuous improvement and why any company needs a disciplined approach to process improvement in every part of the organization.

Liker and Franz outline the common mistakes in thinking that limit results, and they reveal how Toyota achieves its dual objectives of improving business performance and developing its people through following Dr. W. Edwards Deming’s teachings of Plan-Do-Check-Adjust (PDCA). Through detailed case examples in many industries, you’ll learn how to:

Determine why your processes aren’t achieving anticipated resultsBuild a sustainable lean process with a well-defined purposeCreate a system that reveals problemsTeach every leader and team member at every level the art of PDCA for process improvement

With The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement, you have the foundation you need to develop a vision of continuous improvement specific to your organization and plot a path to turn your vision into a measurable reality.

Praise for The Toyota Way to Continuous Improvement:

“I have found inspiration and lessons in these real stories from real people who try, sometimes fail, and yet find creative ways to succeed in adapting the principles of Deming and Toyota. Despite the diversity of applications revealed here, the commonality in vision, values, and desired outcomes unifies these leaders. You won’t be able to put this book down.”RICHARD ZARBO, MD, DMD, Senior Vice President and Chairman of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Henry Ford Health System

“Lean is no longer an idea, a hypothesis, or a theory—it is a proven set of principles and practices that more and more people are using to achieve substantial, sustainable continuous improvement in a variety of enterprises. This book details the practices and case studies to help you bring Lean transformation to your enterprise!”CHARLES BAKER, former Chief Engineer and former Vice President, Honda R&D Americas

The definitive inside account of Toyota's greatest crisis—and lessons you can apply to your own company

"Those who write off Toyota in the current climate of second guessing and speculation are making a profound mistake and need to read this book to get the facts. Toyota is a company that will channel the current challenges to push themselves to even more relentless continuous improvement."—Charles Baker, former Chief Engineer and Vice President for R&D, Honda of America

"Toyota Under Fire is a superb book and should prove very helpful to American industry's understanding of the problems faced and how any company can prevent similar occurrences in the future."—Norman Bodek, author, founder of Productivity Press, and inductee in 2010 Industry Week Manufacturing Hall of Fame

"As a former automotive supplier executive and student of Toyota, I was concerned to see the many negative reports and investigations into the quality and safety of its vehicles. Toyota Under Fire tells the story of how this great company is growing wiser and stronger by living its culture and values."—Michael Fisher, CEO, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center

"Just as Toyota has put itself through excruciating soul-searching in order to understand what went wrong, so should we all take advantage of the opportunity for learning presented to us by Toyota's misfortune. In these pages, you will find that the actual circumstances were far more complex, nuanced, and uncertain than you saw reported in the news."—John Y. Shook, Chairman and CEO, Lean Enterprise Institute

"The most comprehensive and detailed review to date of the circumstances that led to the crisis, and the events and contexts that caused it to escalate.”—Strategy & Business

About the Book

For decades, Toyota has been setting standards that are the envy—and goal—of organizations worldwide. Its legendary management principles and business philosophy, first documented by Jeffrey K. Liker in his influential book The Toyota Way, changed the business world's approach to operational excellence.

Granted unprecedented access to Toyota's facilities worldwide, Liker, along with Timothy N. Ogden, investigated the inside story of how Toyota faced the challenges of the recession and the recall crisis of 2009–2010. In both cases, the company was caught off guard—and found that a root cause of the challenges it faced was its failure to live up to its own principles. But the fundamentals were still there, and the company has ultimately come out of the most challenging years of its postwar existence even stronger than before.

Toyota Under Fire chronicles all the events of the recession and the recall crisis in detail, providing valuable lessons any business leader can use to survive and thrive in a crisis, no matter how large:

Crisis response must start by building a strong culture long before the crisis hits.Culture matters far more than decisions made by top executives.Investing in people, even in the depths of a recession, is the surest path to long-term profitability.

Because it had founded its culture on such principles, Toyota didn’t need to amass an army of public relations, marketing, and legal experts to "put out the fire"; instead, it redoubled efforts to live up to its founding tenet, going "back to basics." Toyota began solving this crisis more than 70 years ago, when its organizational culture was first established.

Apply the lessons of Toyota Under Fire to your company, and you'll meet any future management challenge calmly, responsibly, and effectively—the Toyota Way.

The Missing Link to Toyota-Style Success—LEAN LEADERSHIP

Winner of the 2012 Shingo Research and Professional Publications Award

“This great book reveals the secret ingredient to lean success: lean leadership. Not only is it a pleasure to read, but it is also deep and enlightening. This book is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in lean: it’s both an eye opener and a game changer.”—Michael Ballé, Ph.D., coauthor of The Gold Mine and The Lean Manager

“This will immediately be recognized as the most important book ever published to understand and guide ‘True North Lean’ and the goal of perpetual business excellence.”—Ross E. Robson, President and CEO, DnR Lean, LLC, and the original Director of The Shingo Prize

“An excellent book that will shape leadership development for decades to come.”—Karen Martin, Principal, Karen Martin & Associates, and author of The Kaizen Event Planner

About the Book:

TOYOTA. The name signifies greatness— world-class cars and game-changing business thinking. One key to the Toyota Motor Company’s unprecedented success is its famous production system and its lesser-known product development program. These strategies consider the end user at every turn and have become the model for the global lean business movement.

All too often, organizations adopting lean miss the most critical ingredient—lean leadership. Toyota makes enormous investments in carefully selecting and intensively developing leaders who fit its unique philosophy and culture. Thanks to the company’s lean leadership approach, explains Toyota Way author Jeffrey Liker and former Toyota executive Gary Convis, the celebrated carmaker has set into motion a drive for continuous improvement at all levels of its business. This has allowed for:

Constant growth: Toyota increased profitability for 58 consecutive years—slowing down only in the face of 2008’s worldwide financial difficulties, the recall crisis, and the worst Japanese earthquake of the century.Unstoppable inventiveness: Toyota’s approach to innovative thinking and problem solving has resulted in top industry ratings and incredible customer satisfaction, while allowing the company to weather these three crises in rapid succession and to come out stronger.Strong branding and respect: Toyota’s reputation was instrumental in the company’s ability to withstand the recalls-driven media storm of 2010.

But what looked to some to be a sinking ship is once again running under a full head of steam. Perhaps the Toyota culture had weakened, but lean leadership was the beacon that showed the way back.

In fact, writes Liker, the company is “as good and perhaps a better model for lean leadership than it ever has been.” of innovation and growth. Yet, Industry Week reports that just 2 percent of companies using lean processes can likewise claim to have had long-term success. What the other 98 percent lack is unified leadership with a common method and philosophy.

If you want to get lean, you have to take it to the leadership level. The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership shows you how.

How companies are using lean development to revolutionize their product and service offerings—vital lessons any business leader can use as an engine of innovationHow did Ford Motors use Lean Development to pull off one of the most impressive corporate turnarounds in history? Largely by avoiding the mistakes that so many companies make when in a death spiral.  They looked beyond manufacturing efficiency to change the very fundamentals of how they developed vehicles.In Designing the Future, Lean product development expert James Morgan and world-renowned Lean guru Jeffrey K. Liker reveal why so many companies have achieved only moderate success with Lean in operations, with a limited impact on their overall business. They take you through the process of bringing the best of Lean management to your enterprise—in order to link your business strategy to superior value designed for customers. The authors provide an actionable approach to building a better future for your business fueled by an iterative, integrated process that relies on simultaneous engineering, linking strategy and vision.They illustrate how to empower skilled and talented people to make collaboration and innovation a habit—hour to hour and day to day. It’s the secret of full implementation of Lean—and this groundbreaking guide takes you through every step of the process. The best way to predict the future is to create it. With Designing the Future, you have everything you need to create a flexible, iterative business-transformation process that takes you from strategic vision to value stream creation for maximum customer value delivery.