Lean Manufacturing is the latest buzzword in Just In Time and

manufacturing circles. It is not especially new. It The Toyota Production System

derives from the Toyota Production System or The Allied victory and the massive quantities of
Just In Time Production, Henry Ford and other material behind it (see "A Bomber An Hour")
predecessors. caught the attention of Japanese industrialists.
They studied American production methods with
The lineage of Lean manufacturing and Just
particular attention to Ford practices and the
In Time (JIT) Production goes back to Eli
Statistical Quality Control practices of Ishikawa,
Whitney and the concept of interchangeable
Edwards Deming, and Joseph Juran.
parts. This article traces the high points of that
long history. At Toyota Motor Company, Taichii
Ohno and Shigeo Shingo, began
Early Developments to incorporate Ford production
Eli Whitney is most and other techniques into an
famous as the inventor of approach called Toyota
the cotton gin. However, Production System or Just In
the gin was a minor Time . They recognized the central role of
accomplishment inventory.
compared to his
perfection of The Toyota people also recognized that the
interchangeable parts. Ford system had contradictions and
Whitney developed this shortcomings, particularly with respect to
about 1799 when he took employees. With General Douglas MacAurthur
a contract from the U.S. Army for the actively promoting labor unions in the
manufacture of 10,000 muskets at the occupation years, Ford's harsh attitudes and
unbelievably low price of $13.40 each. demeaning job structures were unworkable in
post-war Japan. They were also unworkable in
For the next 100 years manufacturers the American context, but that would not be
primarily concerned themselves with evident for some years. America's "Greatest
individual technologies. During this time our Generation" carried over attitudes from the
system of engineering drawings developed, Great Depression that made the system work in
modern machine tools were perfected and large spite of its defects.
scale processes such as the Bessemer process
for making steel held the center of attention. Toyota soon discovered that factory workers
had far more to contribute than just muscle
As products moved from one discrete process power. This discovery probably originated in
to the next through the logistics system and the Quality Circle movement. Ishikawa,
within factories, few people concerned Deming, and Juran all made major contributions
themselves with: to the quality movement. It culminated in team
development and cellular manufacturing.
 What happened between processes
 How multiple processes were Another key discovery involved product
arranged within the factory variety. The Ford system was built around a
single, never changing product. It did not cope
 How the chain of processes well with multiple or new products.
functioned as a system.
Shingo, at Ohno's suggestion, went
 How each worker went about a task to work on the setup and
This changed in the late 1890's with the work of changeover problem. Reducing
early Industrial Engineers. setups to minutes and seconds
allowed small batches and an almost
Frederick W. Taylor continuous flow like the original Ford concept. It
began to look at individual introduced a flexibility that Henry Ford thought
workers and work he did not need.
methods. The result was
Time Study and All of this took place between about 1949 and
standardized work. Taylor 1975. To some extent it spread to other
was a controversial Japanese companies. When the productivity
figure. He called his ideas and quality gains became evident to the outside
Scientific Management. world, American executives traveled to Japan to
The concept of applying science to
management was sound but Taylor simply study it.
ignored the behavioral sciences. In addition, he
had a peculiar attitude towards factory workers. They brought back, mostly, the superficial
aspects like kanban cards and quality circles.
Frank Gilbreth (Cheaper By The Dozen) added Most early attempts to emulate Toyota failed
Motion Study and invented Process Charting. because they were not integrated into a
Process charts focused attention on all work complete system and because few
elements including those non-value added understood the underlying principles.
elements which normally occur between the
"official" elements. Norman Bodek first published the works of
Shingo and Ohno in English. He did much to
Lillian Gilbreth brought psychology into the mix transfer this knowledge and build awareness in
by studying the motivations of workers and how the Western world. Robert Hall and Richard
attitudes affected the outcome of a process. Schonberger also wrote popular books.
There were, of course, many other contributors.
These were the people who originated the idea World Class Manufacturing
of "eliminating waste", a key tenet of JIT and By the 1980's some American manufacturers,
Lean Manufacturing. such as Omark Industries, General Electric and
Kawasaki (Lincoln,Nebraska) were achieving
The Ford System success.
And then, there was
Henry Ford. Consultants took up the campaign and
acronyms sprouted like weeds: World Class
Starting about 1910, Ford Manufacturing (WCM), Stockless Production,
and his right-hand-man, Continuous Flow Manufacturing (CFM), and
Charles E. Sorensen, many other names all referred to systems that
fashioned the first were, essentially, Toyota Production.
comprehensive
Manufacturing Strategy. Gradually, a knowledge and experience base
They took all the elements developed and success stories became more
of a manufacturing system-- frequent.
people, machines, tooling, and products-- and
Lean Manufacturing
arranged them in a continuous system for
In 1990 James Womack wrote a book called
manufacturing the Model T automobile. Ford
"The Machine That Changed The World".
was so incredibly successful he quickly became
Womack's book was a straightforward account
one of the world's richest men and put the world
of the history of automobile manufacturing
on wheels. Ford is considered by many to be
combined with a study of Japanese, American,
the first practitioner of Just In Time and
and European automotive assembly plants.
Lean Manufacturing.
What was new was a phrase-- "Lean
Ford's success inspired many others to copy his Manufacturing."
methods. But most of those who copied did
Lean Manufacturing caught the imagination
not understand the fundamentals. Ford
of manufacturing people in many countries.
assembly lines were often employed for
Lean implementations are now commonplace.
products and processes that were unsuitable for
The knowledge and experience base is
them.
expanding rapidly.
It is even doubtful that Henry Ford himself fully
The essential elements of Lean Manufacturing
understood what he had done and why it was
are described at our page "Principles of Lean
so successful. When the world began to
Manufacturing." They do not substantially differ
change, the Ford system began to break
from the techniques developed by Ohno,
down and Henry Ford refused to change the
Shingo and the people at Toyota. The
system.
application in any specific factory does
For example, Ford production depended on a change. Just as many firms copied Ford
labor force that was so desperate for money techniques in slavish and unthinking ways,
and jobs that workers would sacrifice their many firms copy Toyota's techniques in slavish
dignity and self esteem. The prosperity of the and unthinking ways and with poor results. Our
1920's and the advent of labor unions produced series of articles on implementation includes a
conflict with the Ford system. Product "Mental Model" to assist the thinking process
proliferation also put strains on the Ford and guidance on strategy and planning.
system. Annual model changes, multiple There is no cookbook for manufacturing.
colors, and options did not fit well in Ford Each firm has its own unique set of products,
factories. processes, people, and history. While certain
principles may be immutable, their application is
At General Motors, Alfred P. Sloan took a more not. Manufacturing Strategy will always be a
pragmatic approach. He developed business difficult, uncertain, and individual
and manufacturing strategies for managing very process. Strategy ("The General's Art") is still,
large enterprises and dealing with variety. By largely, an art. But, that should not prevent us
the mid 1930's General Motors had passed from bringing the available science to bear on
Ford in domination of the automotive market. the problem.
Yet, many elements of Ford production were
sound, even in the new age. Ford methods Developing your Manufacturing Strategy is what
were a deciding factor in the Allied victory of this site and Strategos is all about.
World War II. _____________________________
Special thanks Norman Bodek who contributed details about
Ironically, Henry Ford developments at Toyota and the transfer of these discoveries to
the West.
hated war and refused to SORENSEN, CHARLES E., My Forty Years With Ford. New
build armaments long York: W.W. Norton, 1956.
after war was inevitable. KANIGAL, ROBERT, The One Best Way, New York: Penguin,
However, when Ford 1997.
LACEY, ROBERT, Ford: The Men and
plants finally retooled for
war production, they did
so on a fantastic scale as
epitomized by the Willow
Run Bomber plant that
built "A bomber An
Hour."
A Lean Manufacturing Timeline
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