call the Toyota Way. Actually, I have developed many close relationships over
the years and continually learn through my visits to Toyota and its affiliates, as
well as intense discussions with my friends and colleagues inside and outside
of Toyota. I also continually learn from my experiences consulting to companies
throughout the world that try to learn from the Toyota Way. Indirectly, I am con-
stantly learning from the consultants who work for me through Optiprise,
which is on the front lines of implementing lean and transforming culture in
many different types of organizations.
Since I wrote the book, I have spent a good deal of time at the Toyota plant
in Georgetown, Kentucky (TMMK), at NUMMI in California, and at Denso in
Battlecreek, Michigan. I had a similar epiphany in each case. All three have
struggled and had to work really hard to maintain the Toyota Way culture and
become self-sufficient from their early Japanese mentors. There are case studies
from all three of these Toyota group sites in this book. Many people spent a
great deal of time patiently showing me and teaching me, in particular, Gary
Convis, president of TMMK, and Wil James, vice president of manufacturing,
despite the intense demands on their own time. Mike Brewer, who has the dis-
tinction of being the only NUMMI alumni who worked for General Motors to
be brought back to NUMMI as a Toyota Production System (TPS) advisor, showed
me the progress being made at that continuing TPS success story. Andris
Staltmanis, assistant general manager of Denso in Battlecreek, is helping to lead
that location to a new level of TPS, and he shared generously his insights.
I was able to draw on companies that I advise to develop case examples that
illustrate the struggles and victories of American companies outside Toyota
learning to think lean. Pasquali Digirolamo personally has helped lead Tenneco
Automotive toward a global transformation with endless passion and energy.
Mike Butler has been working tirelessly as a civil servant to make the
Jacksonville Naval Air Depot one of the benchmarks for lean to better serve the
American defense effort through quicker turnaround of aircraft. John Matheson
has led the U.S. operations of Framatome Technologies into lean models to
teach its French parent what lean can do in the very customized nuclear fuel
industry. David Nelson took his deep learning from Honda to John Deere and
then to Delphi Automotive Systems to try to teach American companies what
true lean supplier partnerships are all about.
I am also grateful to Bill Costantino for bringing David Meier and me
together on this important applied volume on the Toyota Way.
Last but most, I am blessed with a wonderful family, my wife Deborah and
children Jesse and Emma. They have been remarkably supportive and resilient
in the wake of all the demands on my time since the success of The Toyota Way.
Acknowledgments xiii