We strive to decide our own fate. We act with self-reliance, trusting in our own abilities. We accept responsibility for our conduct and for maintain… - Jeffrey K. Liker

Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) Cycle, a cornerstone of continuous improvement. The Japanese term for continuous improvement is kaizen and is the process of making incremental improvements, no matter how small, and achieving the lean goal of eliminating all waste that adds cost without adding to value.

every Toyota team member goes through a basic set of development steps at each stage of her development, following the process of basic learning by copying exactly (shu), mastering the basics so that they become second nature (ha), and becoming so masterful at the basics that she can go beyond these and improvise (ri).

Be responsive to the day-by-day shifts in customer demand rather than relying on computer schedules and systems to track wasteful inventory.