
The Toyota Way - qin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Toyota_Way
======
bitwize
In the 1960s, my father was a manufacturing engineer for BigTechFirm (this was
back when BigTechFirms built actual stuff, rather than trafficking in
webshit). On the shop floor, there were A, B, and C workers on a line in
descending order of skill level required and roughly ascending order of
available workers. It was a true assembly line model. I believe the A and B
workers had more variety to their work but the C workers had precisely one
job, like putting two parts together along a joint or tightening a specific
set of screws. This introduced problems in the line when a C worker got sick:
the line would be held up entirely while a substitute was trained and then the
substitute would perform much more poorly than the sick worker.

My father's bright idea was to give each C worker a workbench and train them
in several jobs, then have them perform all those jobs in one phase of the
assembly. That way, if a C worker got sick, because all of their colleagues
knew all the jobs that worker had to do, the line would be held up much less.

Upper management passed on my dad's idea back then -- but it became all the
rage in the 1980s when it was rediscovered in the Toyota model, part of the
massive fad for "Japanese management techniques" that prevailed back then.

I keep this story in mind when I have to deal with agileshit at a company
whose management had apparently never heard of _The Mythical Man-Month_.

~~~
erikpukinskis
What is webshit? It seems like you are trying to say that you don’t think web
developers build anything worthwhile, but I’m hoping there’s a less insulting
interpretation of your comment?

~~~
bitwize
Television was developed with the intent of bringing culture, like Shakespeare
to the masses -- but it was more profitable to present cheap-to-make, lowest-
common-denominator entertainment and an increasing number of ads. Similarly,
the Web was supposed to be a global information resource for scientific papers
and other human knowledge, but the companies that dominate the Web today have
turned it into television that watches back.

Somewhere there are Web developers adding real value. Sometimes I like to
think I'm one of them. But that's not the LOB of the big players.

------
lemax
"The Machine That Changed the World" is a wonderful title on this. Kiichiro
Toyoda invented the lean production model after coming to the states and
studying the inefficiencies of the assembly lines of Ford. This was a process
dependent on modularizing every manufacturing component due to a demand for
the Toyota company to serve a market with a need for an immense variety of
vehicles, and giving teams ownership of the entire production process rather
than one error check at the end a lá Ford. Introducing a vehicle with a
steering wheel on the opposite side might take a year to implement in lean
production, while handling that kind of variation in the assembly line model
could take years (generally double the amount of time); The net result of this
being that Toyota could offer 2x the vehicles of GM at half GM's size. Toyota
was able to make extremely reliable vehicles and modify them as consumer
demands shifted. By 1990, the Japanese were making cars with 4 year product
lives and 500k total units (125k per year) while the Western companies were
building 2M over 10 year product lives.

~~~
nradov
Ironically Toyota now has longer product lives than many other mainstream
manufacturers. The Camry and Corolla are on roughly 6 year product lifecycles.
The 4Runner has barely changed in 10 years.

~~~
smush
> The 4Runner has barely changed in 10 years.

To be fair, that may be a purposeful design decision.

I consider the fact that the 4Runner can trace its way back to a 1980s Hilux
that Top Gear dropped off a building (and still survived) to be nothing but
good for its likely reliability.

Similarly, its primarily dial-based dashboard (as opposed to the touch-screen
everywhere fad right now), truck-based suspension, and off-road performance
(all things that could point to it being a rather much for a city car) to be
its primary selling points.

Additionally, why change what sells so well? They sell ~140,000 4Runners a
year, vs all of the Lexus models combined being ~40,000.

I can't comment on the Camry/Corolla as I've never owned one.

~~~
jdkee
That's incorrect by an order of magnitude. Lexus sells in excess of half a
million cars per year.

~~~
smush
I stand corrected.

Having performed some cursory 'research' I found that in the USA in 2018,
according to [https://www.best-selling-cars.com/brands/2018-full-year-
usa-...](https://www.best-selling-cars.com/brands/2018-full-year-usa-toyota-
north-america-and-lexus-sales/)

All Lexus vehicles combined sold 92,660 units versus the 4Runner model which
sold 139,694 units.

A difference of 47,000 units, or roughly, the 2018 US sales for the Lexus ES

~~~
pixelbash
At a guess the USA is not the primary market for Lexus.

~~~
tastygreenapple
America is 100% the primary market for Lexus.

The first Lexus car ever was unveiled in the 1989 Detroit Auto Show, Toyota's
first non-Japanese Lexus plant was in North America. In fact, Toyota stopped
selling top-of-the-line cars after Lexus launched, they discontinued the
Cressida and stretched the Camry into the Avalon just to have a full-sized
Toyota in America.

Toyota didn't even sell Lexus cars in Japan until ~2006, the American Lexus
vehicles were badged as Toyotas (e.g The LS400/LS430 was the 'Celsior').
Additionally, Japanese luxury tastes are different than American tastes - the
Japanese Toyota Celsiors were available with a premium cloth interior and
without sunroofs (which came standard on many American Lexus cars).

Now, Lexus may sell more in the Middle East than North America (by revenue if
not units) but America was 100% the target market.

------
novaleaf
Whenever I see articles like this, I like to remind people that a great
production system doesn't make a company more honest or accountable.

Unintended acceleration flaw in Toyota models around 2005 to 2011, due to
firmware bugs: [http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-
unintende...](http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintended-
acceleration-and-big-bowl-%E2%80%9Cspaghetti%E2%80%9D-code)

Great for USA customers. They were made whole.

I personally was driving a 2011 Toyota minivan in Thailand in 2013 when I
suffered this firmware bug. Toyota refused to consider it was anything other
than driver fault. I was only going 5kph when it happened so no damage, but
damn scary as hell. No recall in that country, and unless dealers did a covert
firmware upgrade during maintenance, the flaw still exists in similar model
years.

~~~
jacobush
Weirdest thing, a colleague had unintended acceleration in a Toyota 4WD of
much older vintage, 80s or early 90s. Must have been something different
entirely, those things were much more mechanical in nature.

~~~
btilly
Most cases of unintended acceleration, in all brands of cars, are due to the
foot coming down on the wrong pedal. And then in a panic, your brain refuses
to acknowledge the error and doubles down. Your memory gets based on what your
brain thought, and not what actually happened.

US government estimates are that this happens an average of around 16k times
per year in the USA. The press release that Wikipedia cites for that has
disappeared but you can find it on the wayback machine:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180423205652/https://www.nhtsa...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180423205652/https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-
releases/nhtsa-safety-advisory-reducing-crashes-caused-pedal-error)

Toyota's acknowledged problem was a floor mat that could get jammed and cause
the accelerator to stick. However most of their cases of unintended
acceleration were still likely to be human error.

~~~
novaleaf
I'm sorry but you are wrong regarding the Toyota problem.

There was (is?) a firmware issue that caused the vehicle to attempt to speed
up, regardless of if the accelerator was pressed, or even if the brake was
pressed.

In my case, I had the brake fully depressed with around 100kg of force, and
the engine was revving to attempt to overcome the brake (VERY scary situation,
believe me!). The system only recovered when I bumped a taxi in front of me.

Now you may say I was pushing the accelerator. If I did that I would have hit
the car in front of me a lot faster than 5kph. If I was somehow pushing both
the accelerator and the brake, the computer system should ignore the
acceleration anyway (due to brake taking precedence).

But you don't have to take my word for it. Go read up on the Toyota firmware
issue, starting with link I put in the prior post.

EDIT: here's another article, summarizing the faults as determined by court:
[https://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-
kille...](https://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-killer-
firmware--Bad-design-and-its-consequences)

\- Toyota’s electronic throttle control system (ETCS) source code is of
unreasonable quality.

\- Toyota’s source code is defective and contains bugs, including bugs that
can cause unintended acceleration (UA).

\- Code-quality metrics predict presence of additional bugs.

\- Toyota’s fail safes are defective and inadequate (referring to them as a
“house of cards” safety architecture).

\- Misbehaviors of Toyota’s ETCS are a cause of UA.

~~~
parliament32
>I had the brake fully depressed with around 100kg of force, and the engine
was revving to attempt to overcome the brake

No, it wasn't. An engine's speed (RPM / "revs") is directly proportional to
the drivetrain speed -- the RPMs literally _cannot_ increase unless you are 1)
accelerating (actual drivetrain speed going up), 2) shift to a lower gear then
slip torque converter to rev match (I assume you're driving automatic), or 3)
disengaged from the drivetrain (in neutral gear) and hitting the gas.

There's no way for an engine to be "revving" to overcome braking. Hop in a
manual car, get up to a normal speed in any gear, then try hitting both the
brake and gas.

~~~
ak217
This is just plain wrong. The poster didn't say they were at a standstill but
that they had the brake pedal pressed. That means the engine could have
downshifted into 1st gear and started to rev noticeably. The engine would also
produce more power (and sound very different) when taking up load, even under
the same RPM. Finally, as the other reply pointed out, the engine can spin a
clutch or CVT.

~~~
dx034
The poster said that the brake was fully depressed with around 100kg of force.
It won't take long for that to be in a standstill. And there's no way
acceleration can overpower that kind of brake power. The sound might be scary
but it won't change much about brake performance.

~~~
jacobush
Bad clutch plus bad brakes (but not so bad as to be unserviceable in light,
normal use). Story is not implausible.

------
radcon
They should call this "The Deming Way" since most of it sounds identical to
Deming's management philosophy and he taught Toyota back in the 1960s[1]. His
system also had 14 points, which probably isn't a coincidence[2].

[1] [https://blog.deming.org/2016/10/toyotas-management-
history/](https://blog.deming.org/2016/10/toyotas-management-history/)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming)

~~~
gotts
Thanks for sharing! Good read

~~~
radcon
Thanks for reading! I think Deming is extremely under-appreciated.

It seems like Six Sigma is all anyone talks about in terms of management
philosophy these days...

~~~
riffic
Deming's work has been highly influential within the DevOps community:

[https://itrevolution.com/deming-to-devops-
part-1/](https://itrevolution.com/deming-to-devops-part-1/)

------
kesor
I love the Toyota books, read almost any book that is somehow connected to
TPS, Toyota, Lean and such.

There is a really fun to read a trilogy by Michael Ballé, the first book is
called "The Gold Mine".

And from Goldratt, all of his books and videos and related material is also a
favorite. Specifically, about Toyota, Eli Goldratt wrote an article that
provides the historical context and what problems Toyota solved, and then
continue to improve upon that solution to invent a new solution that is even
more amazing. Highly recommended 10m read for free here
[https://www.goldrattconsulting.com/webfiles/fck/files/Standi...](https://www.goldrattconsulting.com/webfiles/fck/files/Standing-
on-the-Shoulders-of-Giants.pdf)

------
wil421
>Principle 5 Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right
the first time. Quality takes precedence (Jidoka). Any employee in the Toyota
Production System has the authority to stop the process to signal a quality
issue.

I heard culturally Japan and to an extent other Asian manufacturing nations
would never actually press the button. Can anyone confirm this?

~~~
mnctvanj
If you can get your hands on the HBS case study of TPS it's a great read.
Details how much emphasis is put on blaming any/all issues on process, rather
than people. To the extent that if a clumsy worker drops a wrench, it is
assumed to be a problem with process, not that worker, and addressed
immediately. The case study also describes a couple of examples of assembly
line workers pulling the stop levers and how management runs over asap (every
minute of stoppage is much money lost) to ask the question "why" five times in
order to understand the root issue of the process breakdown.

~~~
bityard
> The case study also describes a couple of examples of assembly line workers
> pulling the stop levers and how management runs over asap (every minute of
> stoppage is much money lost) to ask the question "why" five times in order
> to understand the root issue of the process breakdown.

More than that, when the manager approaches the employee who stopped the line,
she is not supposed to ask, "why did you stop the line?" She instead asks,
"how can I help?"

------
akeck
My favorite book in this topic is "The High-Velocity Edge: How Market Leaders
Leverage Operational Excellence to Beat the Competition: Second Edition" by
Steven J. Spear (Formerly "Chasing The Rabbit")

Also really good: Deming wrote his perspective in "Out of Crisis" and Toyota's
Taiichi Ohno wrote about his experience in "Toyota Production System: Beyond
Large-Scale Production". As others have mentioned, Deming laid the ground work
for this type of thinking in post-war Japan. Taiichi Ohno led the initial
development of the Toyota Production System.

------
Someone1234
How do you maintain "Principle 1" while being a publicly traded company?

The way the stock market is designed (and the fact that stockholders often get
to appoint the board who gets to appoint the CEO) means they're going to put
short term profits over long term viability. Many companies have been ruined
and continue to be ruined by this short-term-ism chase for quarterly and
yearly profits.

For example look at the field of Customer Retentions. It used to be focused on
satisfaction & delight which are both long term success strategies (both to
grow and to retain), but in the last twenty years Customer Switching (i.e.
making it harder/more costly/more time consuming/more stressful/etc to switch)
has become the norm, this is a short term strategy since it improves short
term retention metrics at the cost of long term returning customers and poor
word of mouth (i.e. nobody returns or joins after they leave, if you made the
switching process hellish). It is a great way to keep your quarterly and
yearly churn low, but a poor way to run a business.

It used to only be businesses with artificial monopolies that would do this
(e.g. Verizon, Comcast, etc). But recently we've seen companies in fairly
competitive spaces adopted a similar short term "suicide strategy" like
LogMeIn (Remote Support Software), The New York Times (News Publication),
SiriusXM (streaming audio), etc. All of which are likely chasing quarterly
performance metrics tied to executive compensation.

~~~
bluGill
While that is a common statement, it isn't really true. Most stock holders
have figured out that long term profits are important as well. Companies that
only focus short term go out of business quickly and so are worth less than
companies who will be around longer.

Most shareholders (37%) are retirement accounts which have long term goals.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Most stock holders have figured out that long term profits are important as
> well. Companies that only focus short term go out of business quickly and so
> are worth less than companies who will be around longer._

Doesn't matter if the stock holders who pushed for the decisions managed to
flip their stocks when they were still rising in value. Aren't most stock
holders playing this game to flip stocks, without caring much about the
particular company they're making money off?

~~~
icxa
Aren't most stocks are held in index funds and ETFs?

~~~
TeMPOraL
I don't know. Could someone who knows this for sure chime in here?

~~~
nradov
Yahoo Finance will show you the top holders for any publicly traded company.

[https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TM/holders?p=TM](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TM/holders?p=TM)

------
frostyj
FYI, practice of Kanban also comes from Toyota:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban)

------
richman777
A lot of this was covered in "The Phoenix Project". A good read but a bit
idealistic in the expected outcome. The fake company was essentially able to
right the sinking ship after the band had already stopped playing, in 2
quarters no less.

However, the core tenets were valid from a general approach. My fear when
reading was the potential to go overboard. We have all met over-zealous scrum
masters. Same could be applied to a lot of the stuff they were essentially
transferring from manufacturing to development and more specifically devops.

~~~
Jtsummers
It's worth reading _The Goal_ as _The Phoenix Project_ is somewhat based on
it. _The Goal_ introduces the idea of Theory of Constraints in a similar
novelized form, and _The Phoenix Project_ takes ToC and applies it to
information systems/software work. There's overlap between ToC and the Toyota
Way (Toyota Production System, Lean, etc.) as all are based on taking a
systems view of things, and place a great deal of emphasis on identifying
problems with the process, not the people (that is, no individual blame).

~~~
mbubb
I had a CTO loan me "The Goal" after I came back from USENIX in Boston (2011)
talking about devops and shite... Its a good read and gave context to the
Phoenix project without being a spoiler...

------
sixdimensional
And what I have seen (working in a similarly famous Japanese company) is that
while these management models are quite powerful, they lack interpretation in
the modern age - that is to say, how they apply to systems, data, software,
etc. For example, if data quality is not respected holistically (an extension
of the focus on "quality"), the organization and its constituents (customers,
employees, stakeholders) suffer.

------
artsyca
Why don't software professionals defer more to the likes of Nintendo, Konami,
and other Japanese software companies rather than this manufacturing process?

~~~
Jtsummers
Are those companies known for their speed and quality of code delivery? Have
they published studies and popularised their approaches? Have they, or anyone
else, generalized their approaches to things other than specific software
categories?

The thing about the manufacturing processes that have come out of Toyota (and
others), or the ideas from Deming, Goldratt, and others, is that they're more
about general systems theory. What is the flow through the system? How do we
know when is an appropriate time to do X? How do we know the focus should be
on improving the sales team and not the development team or vice versa?

It may seem like a focus on a manufacturing is misplaced, but many of the
ideas transfers over to services as well. Within your business, you have
processes which are repeated regularly, information flows with bottlenecks.
Which of those should you focus on improving? How do you determine that? How
do you measure the improvement efforts? How do you choose how to improve
something (top-down directive, or bottom-up participatory effort)? Study Lean,
Theory of Constraints, and systems theory and you'll get some answers and
ideas.

~~~
artsyca
Nintendo releases more software than Toyota

~~~
Jtsummers
Maybe don’t edit your post next time? Especially after people have replied.
That’s a very dishonest mode of discussion.

~~~
stordoff
What was edited? The discussion still appears to make sense.

~~~
artsyca
The point is dear friends and colleagues, that none of us signed up to be
computer professionals only to have our craft usurped by a bunch of management
types trying to make a name for themselves by spouting eastern philosophies
and wearing ragged golf shirts

I am tired of having a textbook thrown at me every time I ask a human question
and treated like a factory floor worker by human automata and recent grads
suffering from impostor syndrome

I know there is more to software than bottlenecks and efficiencies and all
that tripe it seems quality and quantity are the only measures may as well go
back to East Germany where all this bullshit emanates from in the first place

Even the damned ranking system on hacker news is an echo to the system used in
North Korea. Software has become a breeding ground of groupthink and it's this
kind of crap that fuels it

Are you seriously telling me Toyota is a better software company than
Nintendo?

------
curiouscats
Those interested might also find these worth reading:

Deming and Software Development

    
    
      https://management.curiouscatblog.net/2014/03/17/deming-and-software-development/
    

What’s Deming Got to Do With Agile Software Development and Kanban

    
    
      https://blog.deming.org/2013/07/whats-deming-got-to-do-with-agile-software-development-and-kanban/

~~~
1123581321
Please just put links on a normal line of text — code formatting prevents them
from being rendered as clickable links. It also makes them harder to read on
mobile.

------
mindcrime
This Toyota stuff gets a little bit of a bad rap in some circles, because of
the infamous "TPS report" thing - some people believe it's a reference to
"Toyota Production System." My understanding is that the Office Space
reference was actually meant to be to Testing Procedure Specification
documents, but it's hard to be sure.

In any case, Toyota / Lean / etc. is a mindset that has a lot of really good
ideas embedded in it. I'm sure you can take it and distort it and come up with
a monstrosity (like people do with "Agile") but the core stuff is really good.

As noted by lemax, _The Machine That Changed The World_ is a really good book
on this topic.

It's also interesting to note that a lot of the "Toyota" system was inspired
by the teachings of an American, W. Edwards Deming. If I recall the story
correctly, Deming was pushing these ideas on statistical process control, and
nobody in America would listen to him, so he want to Japan and they embraced
his stuff, ran with it, and it helped them become a manufacturing juggernaut.

~~~
Retra
I'm pretty sure the writers of Office Space have gone on record saying "TPS
report" is a meaningless term used simply to evoke a sense of wasteful
bureaucratic nonsense.

~~~
mindcrime
Hmm... this article[1] cites an interview with Mike Judge where he says it
mean "Test Program Set" when he was an engineer.

Anyway, I've seen more than a few people jump to the conclusion that it stands
for something to do with the "Toyota Production System" which is unfortunate.

[1]: [http://mentalfloss.com/article/57338/what-tps-
report](http://mentalfloss.com/article/57338/what-tps-report)

~~~
Ambele
That's too bad. It's quite funny thinking Toyota Production System is where
TPS reports come from because it's so believable. Even though Toyota switched
to Agile-ish methodologies, they still produce 20x the documentation and
paperwork that the Waterfall method produces!

------
johnnycab
A resonably good read: [https://www.thedrive.com/tech/26955/inside-toyotas-
takaoka-2...](https://www.thedrive.com/tech/26955/inside-toyotas-
takaoka-2-line-the-most-flexible-line-in-the-world)

 _How do you double output to 500,000 cars a year? “Easy,” you say, “just make
that line run faster.”_

------
0898
"Work like the tortoise, not the hare."

I knew I was onto something.

~~~
pier25
Completely unrelated but...

I was listening to the "The Rocky Road to Dublin" when reading your comment
during the "hunt the hare" part.

Funny coincidence.

~~~
favorited
Which version? The Dubliners recording (with Luke Kelly singing) is one of my
favorite songs of all time.

~~~
pier25
This one:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxBKgOyMzSc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxBKgOyMzSc)

Edit:

Although this one is pretty good too!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QdbeM2JWYE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QdbeM2JWYE)

------
atulatul
This American Life had an interesting episode.

A car plant in Fremont California that might have saved the U.S. car industry.
In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened NUMMI as a joint venture. Toyota
showed GM the secrets of its production system: How it made cars of much
higher quality and much lower cost than GM achieved. Frank Langfitt explains
why GM didn't learn the lessons—until it was too late.

[https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015)

------
fblp
Curious would anyone like to learn about Toyota production system (lean
manufacturing) implementation at Zenbooth factory in Berkeley, CA? We've
thought about doing tours.

~~~
jimnotgym
If I was in the USA, in a heartbeat. I have got so much buy-in in the past by
taking senior people on tours and showing them the things I am trying to get
them to buy. Seeing things in action is much more powerful for many people
than dry documents.

------
mattjbak
I enjoyed this fiction book that covers a story of a business professional
learning the Toyota business system from a mentor. It's a quick worthwhile
read. Non-affiliate Amazon link here: [https://www.amazon.com/Andy-Me-Crisis-
Transformation-Journey...](https://www.amazon.com/Andy-Me-Crisis-
Transformation-Journey/dp/1439825386)

------
khalvin
This is no longer the case. Toyota quality is been slipping lately. I got a
brand new Toyota the dealer had to replace transmission after 3k.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Where was it made? Anything outside of Japan won't benefit from the culturally
pervasive perfectionism.

------
chiefalchemist
Isn't this based on a "philosophy" published by Bell Labs a couple of decades
prior?

~~~
Jtsummers
Can you point to a source or resource on that?

~~~
chiefalchemist
I've read it mentioned a number of places - as it's somewhat mythical - but
the source that comes to mind at the moment - but perhaps I'm getting it
wrong? - was the book "Creativity Inc."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity%2C_Inc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity%2C_Inc).

------
mti27
When US and Japan car makers join forces:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7trB7i2xpfc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7trB7i2xpfc)

------
kaycebasques
They list “motion” as a form of waste. What does this mean?

~~~
Jtsummers
In manufacturing its unneeded movement. If I have to get a part that’s at the
other side of the facility or even 30’ away, that’s a lot of effort in
roundtrips. The component or part should be brought to me. Or my work should
be brought to the component or part.

Or the movement could be made useful by having me (or the movement mechanism)
carry something both ways.

------
Symmetry
I initially misread that as "The Toyota War". Which was a real thing, named
that because Chad used Toyota Land Cruisers to defeat Libya.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War)

~~~
jakejarvis
The entire decades-long overseas diversion saga surrounding American Toyota
pickups has always fascinated me.

Top Gear did an episode [0] trying to destroy a Toyota Hilux (similar to the
Land Cruiser) and literally couldn't, which explains why it's so popular with
terrorists. It's a worthwhile watch if you want to see truck survive after
being drowned in water, fire, and the rubble of a demolished skyscraper. Say
what you want about Toyotas, but that's quite the engineering feat in my
opinion!

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWKz7Cthkk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnWKz7Cthkk)

~~~
sprafa
It’s not really limited to terrorists, is it? I mean in the popular
imagination but essentially technicals are actually great for a lot of rough
terrain variable condition combat. But yeah I understand it’s a big deal in
the popular imagination.

~~~
jakejarvis
Not quite sure what you mean by imagination... Of course Toyotas aren't
limited to terrorist groups, but it's definitely been a long-standing trend –
so much so that the US Treasury Department asked Toyota to open an inquiry
internally regarding ISIS and the dozens of Tacomas and Land Cruisers their
propaganda videos:

[https://abcnews.go.com/International/us-officials-isis-
toyot...](https://abcnews.go.com/International/us-officials-isis-toyota-
trucks/story?id=34266539)

~~~
sprafa
Hahah I did not know that. What I meant was lots of third world military and
militia types use technicals, that’s all.

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seancoleman
Ah, I see the HN has discovered the OG lean, the true innovation, commonly
misinterpreted, that inspired Lean Startups.

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thendrill
That shit works only if you are Japanese.... Have Japanese mentality and work
culture... Also your product is a car.. Or something tangable made on a
production line....

Agile IS the Toyota way... Or at least tries to be

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theothermkn
A sibling post mentioned Deming, the American who's WWII work on bomber
production formed the basis for "The Toyota Way," and not in some indirect
way, either. Deming went to Japan at the behest of the US to help them rebuild
their economy after WWII.

~~~
kesor
I read somewhere that the context for this was all the men returning from WW
II. While it was mostly women worked in the factories during the war and had
to find ways to improve production, Deming ideas were solid. But as soon as
the egoistic men came back from the frontlines after the war, he was kinda
"pushed away" because no one in the US wanted to listen to him anymore. Which
naturally was a big mistake as it turned out in the 70s when Japanese car
manufacturing made American cars look like garbage.

