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"Ford needs to remake itself once more, this time in the image of the company that copied Ford’s original system: Toyota."

James Womack is one of the key people¹ who introduced the world to the dominance of lean approaches over conventional business approaches. He continues to engage company leaders in discussions inviting and imploring them to adopt lean approaches to their business. One way he does that is with his regular emails to Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) members². In his latest email, The Lean Way Forward at Ford, Jim recounts Ford's historical contributions to lean and offers his opinion of how they came to their current fate. He finished that email this way:

"…my prescription for new Ford CEO Alan Mullaly is the same (as it was for former CEO Jac Nassar): Fundamentally rethink the supplier management system. Fundamentally rethink the product development system. And fundamentally rethink the production system from order to raw materials and from raw materials to delivery, with special attention to the information management system. (Much can still be learned from Ford’s Mazda subsidiary, which became an able pupil of Toyota after a crisis in 1973.) Above all, fundamentally rethink what mangers do and how they do it in order to regain the gemba consciousness that originally took Ford to world dominance. In brief, Ford needs to remake itself once more, this time in the image of the company that copied Ford’s original system: Toyota."

None of us have to repeat the fate of the once-mighty Ford. Not on the factory floor; not in product development; not for those of us who make our livings in project-based firms. Getting lean is no longer an option.

1. Norman Bodek, founder of Productivity Press, translated and published over 300 Japanese-language books including Taiichi Ohno's and Shigeo Shingo's. The other person is Jeffrey Liker, author of the easy-to-read book on lean The Toyota Way. [ ⇑ back ]
2. Visit http://www.lean.org to subscribe. Use "Member Sign-up" at the bottom right corner of the homepage to get a free subscription and gain immediate access to all the valuable content on the LEI web site about implementing lean. [ ⇑ back ]