14 Management Principles

14 Management Principles of The Toyota Way

Jeffrey Liker described the key management principles summarizing the Toyota production system in his book titled “The Toyota Way”. These principles are referred to as the Management Principles of The Toyota Way. We also know these as Lean Management Principles. Below is the complete list of these 14 Management Principles of The Toyota Way.

You should not confuse these 14 Management principles of The Toyota Way with 14 key points for Total Quality Management. These are two different principles altogether.

Principle 1 : Base your management decisions on long term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term financial goals
Principle 2 : Create continuous process flow to bring problems to the surface (Implement Just in Time)
Principle 3 : Use pull production systems to avoid ‘overproduction’
Principle 4 : Level out the workload (Eliminate waiting)
Principle 5 : Build a culture of ‘stopping to fix problems’ to get quality right (Eliminate rework)
Principle 6 : Standardised tasks are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee empowerment
Principle 7 : Use visual controls so no problems are hidden and everyone has exposure to Opportunities
Principle 8 : Use only reliable and thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes
Principle 9 : Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy and teach it to others
Principle 10 : Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company’s philosophy
Principle 11 : Respect your extended network of partners & suppliers by challenging them and helping them improve
Principle 12 : Go and see for yourself and thoroughly understand the situation (Gemba walks)
Principle 13 : Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options and then implement them rapidly
Principle 14 : Become a learning organization through relentless reflection and continuous improvement

By the way, do check out the Certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Handbook – it is one of the most essential guide for anyone trying to get certified as LSS Black belt or in general wants to understand LSS and improve processes. – check it out here.

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Sachin Naik

Passionate about improving processes and systems | Lean Six Sigma practitioner, trainer and coach for 14+ years consulting giant corporations and fortune 500 companies on Operational Excellence | Start-up enthusiast | Change Management and Design Thinking student | Love to ride and drive