Lean Manufacturing Quotes

And we are reducing the time line by reducing the non-value-added wastes.

The world we have created is a product of our thinking.

The most effective way to improve productivity is to eliminate work.

Time waste differs from material waste in that there can be no salvage.

Time waste differs from material waste in that there can be no salvage. The easiest of all wastes and the hardest to correct is the waste of time, because wasted time does not litter the floor like wasted material.

Costs do not exist to be calculated. Costs exist to be reduced.

Scrap doesn't come for free, we pay someone to make it.

We have to grasp not only the Know-How but also 'Know Why', if we want to master the Toyota Production System.

The Toyota style is not to create results by working hard. It is a system that says there is no limit to people's creativity. People don't go to Toyota to 'work' they go there to 'think'.

Kaizen means ongoing improvement involving everybody, without spending much money.

I regarded our progress merely as an invitation to do more - as an indication that we had reached a place where we might begin to perform a real service.

Improvement usually means doing something that we have never done before.

You can't do kaizen just once or twice and expect immediate results. You have to be in it for the long haul.

It takes great effort to follow the rules of a pull system ... thus a half-hearted introduction of a pull system brings a hundred harms and not a single gain.

A bad system will beat a good person every time.

There are many experts on how things have been done up to now. If you think something could use a little improvement, you are the expert.

I don’t like a man to be too efficient. He’s likely to be not human enough.

Why not make the work easier and more interesting so that people do not have to sweat?  The Toyota style is not to create results by working hard. It is a system that says there is no limit to people’s creativity.  People don’t go to Toyota to ‘work’ they go there to ‘think’

The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize.

A relentless barrage of 'why’s' is the best way to prepare your mind to pierce the clouded veil of thinking caused by the status quo.  Use it often.

Waste is worse than loss. The time is coming when every person who lays claim to ability will keep the question of waste before him constantly. The scope of thrift is limitless.

All we are doing is looking at the time line, from the moment the customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash. And we are reducing the time line by reducing the non-value adding wastes.

I think it is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality

A corporation is a living organism; it has to continue to shed its skin. Methods have to change. Focus has to change. Values have to change. The sum total of those changes is transformation.

Sustainability at Nike means being laser-focused on evolving our business model to deliver profitable growth while leveraging the efficiencies of lean manufacturing, minimizing our environmental impact and using the tools available to us to bring about positive change across our entire supply chain.

Commercialism is doing well that which should not be done at all.

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

Automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.

If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.

It's hard to get lost if you don't know where you're going.

If you do not know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere