A journey is made of many paths. Some are safer than others. There are detours and there are highways. Some days we make smooth progress on our journey and some days the scenery does not noticeably change even after walking many miles. On the lean journey in particular we need to be mindful of whether we are taking the short path or the long path.

The short path is to directly solve the problem. It is to pick up the piece of trash in your workplace and throw it away. You are solving a problem, setting a good example for anyone who may be watching, but it is still the short path. The short path is to seek results.

The long path is to indirectly but deliberately solve the problem. It is to point out the piece of trash on the floor to those who work and manage the area each day and to ask why. The long path is to question both the process and the results. In fact both paths, being endless, take an equal amount of time, unless you give up and quit. The long path is "long" because it is feels longer. It is hard. The short path feels faster, more accurate and overall more efficient to do the job right by yourself, the first time, instead of the long path of giving others the chance to learn by trying to solve that problem or complete an assignment. The relationship between the short path and the long path is like that of efficiency and effectiveness: you need both but without effectiveness, efficiency doesn’t count for a whole lot.

We should remember though that you only travel the long path once. It is a progressive journey (though endless) with each success in developing a lean thinker leading you further on the path. On the short path you may see the same territory over and over again and not get far on your journey, if you focus too much on the non-human technical and system aspects that make up a lean organization. Teaching others to solve a problem, letting others make mistakes and helping them learn from their mistakes, the long path takes patience. On the short path you "get there" quicker, put the fix in place and get the results. But we know you never truly "get there" on the lean journey. You can only be at one place at one time, while the developing problem solvers on the long path is a force multiplier.

Toyota people speak of "mono zukuri wa hito zukuri" literally “making things is making people” or “building products begins with developing your people”. I’ve seen a lot of so-called world class manufacturers who were good at making things. I’ve seen very few that were good at making people. The secret to walking the long path is to mark the journey by how many people are coming along with you.

The future state map is created to show us the way to go. There are at least three ways to draw future state value stream maps.

1. The "begin with the end" approach. One way to draw the future state value stream map is to envision the ideal state and work your way back to an interim implementation time line such as 6 or 12 months. While this is fast and powerful, it requires that you have a clear vision of the ideal or "what good looks like" based on a model of process excellence such as TPS. Or if you are really creative and can think outside the box, a flash of insight may deliver the process innovation. Perhaps the greatest risk with this approach is that smart people are good at fooling themselves into thinking they know the answer. They fall in love with their future state and spend less time studying the current state and its flaws when compared to any ideal.

2. The incremental approach. A second way is to systematically identify and eliminate waste from the current state map, and a new "current state" with less waste your future state. This could include bringing processes closer together, reducing error rates or inventories. This is somewhat tactical and moves your towards the ideal condition step by step, unless you stop seeing the waste. This method requires that you get smarter or sharper in your observation as your current state improves over time. Many have bought the books and employed IEs to faithfully apply the tools, only to get stuck at some point because a vision was lacking. Maintaining a strong customer focus and studying lean systems and solutions will help this approach succeed.

3. The cookbook approach. Ask the "10 questions" for building a future state by applying the lean tools based on a recommended method. The questions vary and the number 10 is arbitrary. The questions typically address takt time / pacemaker, continuous flow, kanban / pull signal / supermarkets, heijunka / leveling, scheduling point, standard work / work balancing, lot size reduction / SMED, build to order vs. build to stock and 3P / product & process design approach. We have seen anywhere from 7 to 12 questions, and in each case the approach tends to be somewhat prescriptive, or fit to the worldview of a particular consultant or leaning organization's lean implementation standard. If this approach is used, it needs to be customized for whatever type of industry or business you are in. Perhaps the biggest weakness is that this approach rarely if ever identifies organizational, leadership or foundational behavior issues that are causing the current state to be as bad as it is.

The zeroth way. Draw no future state map at all. A detailed current state map completed with plenty of data based on go see gathering is better than a premature future state map built around a little education and a lot of excitement. A few change loops defining where to start and what to do next may be just as good as a future state map.

The most important part of value stream mapping is the kaizen activity that follows it, based on the PDCA cycle.

The more I learn about what Toyota means by production Control (生産管理), the more I see that it is different that what we mean by production control in the West. Production control is a comprehensive activity of planning, organizing production and related activities including purchasing, managing inventory and production cost controls. Production control has a very important position within Toyota, one might say that the "control" implies an integrating and oversight function for the end-to-end value stream, extending beyond production.

A Wall Street Journal article on July 11, 2008 titled Toyota Shifts Gears To Build Prius in U.S. struck me as an example of this. The North American automotive market has been hit hard by high fuel prices and the slowing economy. The Big Three automotive manufacturers have struggled with excess capacity for years and now even Toyota is experiencing same.

In Taiichi Ohno's Workplace Management, he says repeatedly that "we do not make what we will not sell" as a simple way of explaining that their production control and even their entire manufacturing philosophy is based on synchronizing supply with demand. Ohno fought and taught for decades to make this a reality at Toyota. So when Toyota found themselves recently "making what we will not sell," namely big, gas-guzzling pick up trucks, they stayed true to their principles and decided to idle these factories.

But Toyota has taken a different path than the Big Three in addressing the excess manpower:

The 4,400 workers affected by the plan won't be laid off, the company said. Instead, they will undergo quality, safety and productivity training. A Toyota spokesman declined to comment on the cost of keeping those workers on the payroll.

Kaizen and respect for people. Without decades of kaizen they would not have the cash and profit to ride out these hard times by holding on to their people. Without the philosophy of respect for people, they wouldn't do it in the first place. In their wisdom, I'm sure Wall Street will punish them for this position.

Toyota made a big push into trucks recently in order to capture a piece of that U.S. market. But instead of stubbornly sticking to a bad plan, they have identified the problem, stopped the line (literally) and they applied kaizen their business plan so that they will "only make what we can sell". The truck plant in Indiana, and the new plant in Mississippi (planned for trucks) will both make the gas-electric hybrid vehicle Prius. The San Antonio, Texas plant will be the only place to build trucks. This is a brilliant example of the senior leadership of a company understanding production control from a total business perspective and limiting deadly overproduction.

The Prius is a fine car, but wouldn't you rather drive a fully electric and 100% sensible Tesla? Why not lend some capacity to mass producing these beauties, Toyota?

Mr. Pareto (to the music of Mr. Roboto by Styx)

Domo arigato, Mr. Pareto,
Bara tsuku suuchi de
Domo arigato, Mr. Pareto,
Hosoku wo shiri tai

We're wondering what’s gone wrong, machine or man error again
Special or common cause
Our charts and control plans, we do not understand

A labor variance, we've been hiding, as consulting fees
To err is human, our action checking, for high PPM
So if you find things, lost in MRB, don't be surprised
We're just a plant that can't afford to be stopping the line
Keep shipments on-time, keep them on-time
Non-conforming parts, we sweep them aside

These are not defects, without causation, we have to go see
He came to help us, see our problems, as eighty-twenty
We'll aim for zero, process failures, and we'll check as we go
We're just a plant whose, process limits, went beyond our control
Because our controls, were line-end controls
Quality control, means built-in controls

A great Italian, who taught us how to ask
Gave us the principle, of factor scarcity

Domo arigato Mr. Pareto, domo domo
Domo arigato Mr. Pareto, domo domo
Domo arigato Mr. Pareto, domo domo

Thank you very much, Mr. Pareto
For breaking the faults down to few factors
And thank you very much, Mr. Pareto
For reducing the escaped defects to the customer
Thank you, thank you, thank you
We want to thank you, please, thank you

The problem's plain to see: the trivial many
Your charts help analyze, and to prioritize

The answer’s down to stats
And prioritized tasks
So now we can achieve
Process stability
To enjoy, we enjoy, we enjoy, we enjoy!

We had to explain to people the notion that “no problem is a problem”. This requires redefining for people the lean definition of a problem. A problem is any gap between the ideal and the current condition. Taken to an extreme, by that measure we are nothing but walking problems. Or we could say that if we don't see problems we have set expectations far too low. In either case, for any business there are many practical and long-term strategic gaps and the lean worker should view these as problems. And when we have problems we do kaizen.

At which point another interesting objection was raised: Isn't this just calling the daily work of management "kaizen"? Don't we already by definition do or try to do these things? How is kaizen any different from "improvement" or simply good management? Practically speaking and in terms of kaizen as it exists as part of the philosophy of the Toyota Production System, there are three major differences between kaizen and normal good management.

1. Kaizen requires that we identify and remove waste from our processes
Specifically we need to have an clear definition of waste and an agreed set of 7 or 8 wastes, based on an understanding of the business, the customer and what has value. Good management may lack this keen awareness of waste, and while it may be good it may not be "lean" or resource efficient management, since time is spent doing waste rather than actively removing it.

2. In kaizen, the countermeasure results in a process change that is a new standard
Heroic managers may save the day, but do they leave everyone in better shape to face tomorrow's challenges in their absence? Not often or deliberately enough. It may be personal ability or know-how that allows this manager to succeed. Another difference between good management and kaizen is that a countermeasure taken to address a problem must result in a new standard for that process. That is the check and act of PDCA. We might say that good management has the Do, and maybe the Plan, not always Check and rarely the Act / Adjust.

3. Kaizen is constant, management is continuous
Kaizen defines ideal an state as a result of the countermeasure activities which, sets the next target and the stage for continuous improvement. Good management is satisfied with a job well done, while kaizen is dissatisfied with a job no matter how well done. Constancy implies a steadiness of purpose based on a long-term philosophy also, while improvement of the continuous / discontinuous / innovation order can be long-term focused but is not necessarily.

Kaizen and good management need each other. If we think of problems as positive things, or even an enlightened leaders' reason for being, then we no longer need to flit like the moth to the flame of the latest fiasco, but instead set a steady aim towards a clear big goal and begin to break it down for everyone to work on through kaizen.

Where will we find the time? As consultants, we hear this all of the time. We politely set aside this concern with conviction that there is plenty of slack within a given workday, once some customer-focused prioritizing and basic stabilization activities have taken place to replace the fire-fighting with daily management by fact on the gemba. And yet for people in the thick of the old way of working (the current or non-lean way) the reality is that time to do kaizen can be hard to come by.

This is especially true when we are given goals that seem to be in conflict: get immediate results today with the same or less resources while building long-term capability by enabling people to employ their creativity through kaizen. Lacking specific and effective mechanisms for involving people in kaizen as part of their daily work, this can create a conflict. The same resources needed to address today's problems or serve today's customers are the ones needed to make process improvements for tomorrow. Companies deal with this in various ways, typically by building up the infrastructure to do kaizen, be it a kaizen office, project teams or 5S and kaizen suggestion initiatives. But ultimately these resources are subject to being pulled away to address short-term needs and kaizen can stagnate, if we are not careful.

In the book toyota shiki howaito karaa kakushin (トヨタ式ホワイトカラー革新　Toyota Way "White-Collar Innovation") the TPS consultant, student of Taiichi Ohno and author Tetsuo Kondo relates a story from Toyota in the 1970s that illustrates this. He began studying TPS under Ohno and his disciple Kikuo Suzumura. During a particularly busy period, Suzumura visited the body weld line that Kondo was responsible for. The famously hard-hitting Suzumura scolded Kondo him because it was evident that kaizen activity had not progressed at all in the area. In response to Kondo's excuse that "We are busy," Suzumura retorted "You must feel that kaizen is a biological need, just like eating and sleeping. Otherwise you won't be creative and you can't do kaizen. Do it now!" And further, he said "If you have the will to do kaizen, the time to do kaizen emerges by itself." Reflecting on his words that it was not a lack of time but a lack of a will to do kaizen, Kondo worked until late that evening fixing various problems on the line. Thereafter he found the time to do kaizen each day with his team.

Being in the midst of a particularly busy time myself, these words from Suzumura struck home. Even without working until midnight there is no doubt we can find time to do kaizen if we have the will.

As leaders and managers, it is important to remember that we are in a position to do three things to enable a kaizen culture. First, require kaizen of all of our subordinates. The base job description within a lean organization includes doing the work and improving the work. Second, we must think together with them to positively overcome obstacles and challenges to implementing their ideas. In business it is easier for us to give freely of our wits than of our wallet. Third, we must give them the leisure to implement their creative ideas.

This notion of leisure to do kaizen comes from a quote by the poet Ezra Pound said, "The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation." We say that the person who does the work is the expert in that process and in a sense is the "artist" whose creativity will lead to kaizen. Leaders should think of themselves as "patrons of kaizen" just as there are wealthy "patrons of the arts." We can all do kaizen, but the more valuable contribution of a leader is to give others the leisure to do kaizen.

If you don't have on in your mind already, within the next few minutes you will have a small improvement idea. Pay attention to it and don't dismiss it as too small. If it's a small enough idea, you can do it today.

Nineteenth century English clergyman and author Sydney Smith said, "It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little."

This is as much as I have time for today. A little, but better than nothing. With kaizen, tomorrow will be a better day.

Here is an example from a recent flight:

We can surmise that the small X next to the lit cigarette means "no smoking". The location of the X is curious, and compared to the standard no smoking sign it looks more smoking than non. If you bumped the printer just right, the X might miss the red circle completely, making you think it was a smoking flight. Visual controls should avoid potential ambiguity and be designed to prevent any chance of misunderstanding.

Why not use the standard red circle with horizontal line that is near universal for "no smoking"? One hint is that the black X is printed with the fight number, passenger and seat at time of issue, onto the pre-printed color ticket on card stock. This would only make sense if there is or was in the recent past the option of a smoking flight, and therefore of not printing the black X. Otherwise we would expect the "no smoking" horizonal line or X to be part of the standard pre-printed card.

What then of this little guy? It can only mean that this was a "no running" flight and that passengers would need to get their exercise in other ways during the 12 hour journey. No doubt there are good reasons for this visual control, but it raises two questions: first, was there ever a need to announce the "no running" rule to passengers? It hardly seems possible that anyone would attempt to or succeed at getting very far in the crowded aisles. Second, the fact that the black X is printed on the red circle implies that there is or was a "running OK" flight category in the first place.

This may not be such a ridiculous idea. Almost as soon as our flight landed in Shanghai some passengers stood up and opened the overhead luggage storage compartments. The aircraft was still on the runway, but I suppose it's never too early to get out of your seat when you're doing business in China. Six flight attendants descended on these people to push them back into their seats.

The only disappointment on this flight was that we were promised "dinner, snake and breakfast" but I fell asleep after dinner and there was no snake left for me on the tray table when I woke up for breakfast.

Somewhat cryptically and in unusually clear language, jedi master Yoda said, "You will find only what you bring in." As in any endeavor, what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. First we need to remember that kaizen is "to change and make good" and that in Yoda's words "A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.” Our motivation for doing kaizen is important, lest we slip to the dark side.

When you think, and you are using the force of your creativity. Take the first spark of an idea no matter how small and let it grow. Let other ideas join it. What matters in jedi kaizen is to find ways to "just do it" rather than make elaborate plans or spend too much time assessing risk. When an idea comes from you mind, you have already thought creatively about it. The Force is with you. It does not matter if the improvement idea seems laughably small, just do it.

The jedi master Yoda could have been speaking not of his stature but of what we all have in equal measure, regardless of size: our ability to think.

"Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship."

Sources of ideas are everywhere. Creative thinking energizes us. But we must turn good thoughts into positive action. In the words of Jedi kaizen master Yoda, "Do or do not. There is no try."

Jedi kaizen does not mean simply going out and recklessly giving every wild idea a go, or changing things without proper reflection, training and grounding in guiding principles. Master Yoda again:

"Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind. This one a long time have I watched. All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph. Adventure. Heh. Excitement. Heh. A Jedi craves not these things. You are reckless."

We need to closely follow the advice of one of Yoda's best students. Obi-wan Kenobe advised: “Patience. Use the Force. Think.”

Many people ask "when does lean fail" or "have you ever failed at building a culture of kaizen" and the answer to both is that you fail only when you stop believing it is possible and stop striving. In response to Luke Skywalker saying that he did not believe, Yoda says, "That is why you fail." Kaizen is all about people and their ideas. It is mind over matter. We can overcome any challenge if we believe and persist.

May the Force be with you.

The only reality is what you go see with your own eyes.

If this is true than all other reports, presentations and tales we tell each other are just that: stories of the past with questionable links to the only reality that you can affect today. It requires us to go have a look to gain a deep enough understanding to do something about this reality. Where do we go to have a look? There is a place called the gemba.

Our company name "gemba" means literally "the actual place" where things happen, be it construction, news or factory production. Gemba is where the action is. We say "go to gemba" to mean the deliberate practice of taking oneself to where product is made or where value is otherwise created or service is rendered. For professionals who have risen to their station through hard work, luck, education or some combination thereof, getting away from the hot, noisy and smelly gemba is a career achievement. Yet lean management gently boots these successful professionals back to the gemba to find the only reality.

Toyota has introduced genchi genbutsu to the international glossary of terms related to TPS. A pronunciation guide: "gen" as in "again" + chee, and then "gen" again with "but" as in "boot" and "su" as in "sue". In English this has been shortened to "go see". But go see what? The reality or "genjitsu". It's hardly adequate when the original Japanese is "the real spot, the real thing" and does not in any way say to "go" do anything. It's implied.

The only reality is what you go see with your own eyes. Why not go have a look?

In practical terms you can think of an alarm clock ringing and ringing without interruption as continuously ringing. Hitting the snooze button of a ringing alarm clock only to have it start ringing again later that morning and then hitting the snooze button again, would be an example of a continually ringing alarm clock. If the alarm clock did not go off at all and we could sleep in that may be ideal, just as it may be good to take a break from kaizen on some days so that ideas and energies can be refreshed. Neither continuous improvement nor continual improvement implies that we spend every waking (no sleeping) moment doing kaizen.

For some reason many organizations implement lean from the middle of the organization outwards. One possible reason is that the sponsorship from lean is at middle or senior management rather than the very top of the organization. This creates the need to implement lean as a series of projects led by lean experts rather than a transformation led by a fully engaged leadership and management team. These projects may be very successful. Often they are designed to demonstrate how lean systems will deliver specific desired business results. But projects have scopes and boundaries and by definition are discrete or at best continual and not continuous activities.

Kaizen events break projects down into a more frequent and repetitive series of rapid improvement activities. I know many good companies who have "continuously" been running kaizen events month after month for over a decade. But I am skeptical that relying chiefly on kaizen events represents true continuous improvement. Combined with projects that look across an entire site or value stream, kaizen event-driven lean implementation can greatly accelerate change. The glue that holds these kaizen activities and events together and makes continuous improvement possible is the practice of kaizen as part of daily management.

Kaizen in daily management includes everything from managers finding teaching moments with their subordinates as they make their walks through the gemba, to team leaders helping team members develop complaints into problem statements into root cause analysis exercises and implemented suggestions, to the engineer or manager running to the red andon lamp and making a rapid response to problems that have been identified and escalated.

In other words continuous improvement is not about the exciting, high-energy kaizen events and high-impact lean implementation projects but all about the sometimes boring grind that gets us through the day. The good news is that there's plenty of it for all of us. If that doesn't get you up in the morning there's always continual improvement for you.

At first glance you can mistake it for the familiar "do not" symbol of the red circle with a line through it. However, closer examination only serves to befuddle.

What could this possibly mean? Perhaps "it is OK to rest against the window?" It almost looks like this stick figure person is taking a seat on the window sill, all of 1 cm wide. But why would anyone want to spend money printing and adhering labels to indicate this?

The Budapest subway stations are rustic and charming with old tile and woodwork, so could the sticker mean "come and peer out the window?" Since the window was open, the meaning may have been "these windows can be opened" but this is also odd since the windows do not open from bottom up but pull top-down. These sorts of visual controls could almost make us feel we are not following some simple instructions that everyone else understands.

This doctored version of the visual control is clearly saying "whatever you're thinking about doing to this window, don't do it!" and only true rebels would approach the subway window with bad intent. Even if the consequences of sitting / resting against / peering out the window are not clear, people will generally not loiter around windows with such a visual control.

Ambiguity and creates variation and variation creates waste. What's a visual way of saying "post no ambiguous visual controls"?

1. Revolution of awareness. If you Google "saving energy" there are many articles and ideas these days. For example the Oregon Catalyst offers ten tips for saving gas . This sort of grass roots level and common sense knowledge of how to save energy is being elevated to the mass consciousness and this is a great thing. The parallels of educating everyone about lean, the elimination of the 7 wastes and involving everyone in kaizen should be obvious. The U.S. Air Force is finding the high oil prices hard to bear, and they are an organization with the clout to raise awareness and bring about change in policies at the highest level of government for investing in alternative fuels. According to a May 21, 2008 Wall Street Journal article:

The problems are particularly acute for the Air Force, which uses about 2.6 billion gallons of jet fuel a year, or 10% of the entire domestic market in aviation fuel. The Air Force's fuel costs neared $6 billion last year, up from $2 billion in 2003, even as its consumption fell by more than 10% over the same period because of energy-savings measures, including a campaign to shut off lights and lower thermostats at bases.

At a more personal level, it has been great to have clients listen when we talk about energy as another type of loss that can be recovered through kaizen activities. We promote energy audits where the focus is not on the people or material flow but the energy flow through the equipment, physical infrastructure and facilities. It's amazing the amount of energy wasted in light, heat, inefficient motors, equipment left running and many more reasons. The awareness that was lacking in the past is there now, and more companies are finding ways to measure these losses.

2. Alternative energy. For a long time alternative energy was seen as a poor substitute to "the real thing" as "alternative" implies. But it is just a matter of technology and time to make wind, solar, tidal, geothermal and other energy sources practical and affordable. History has shown repeatedly that what was hard to imagine decades ago is taken for granted when technology catches up with the idea. Take cold fusion for example, which may be an outrageously great alternative energy, if recent experiments prove out. Alternative energy should be re-branded as "renewable energy", "clean energy" or even "next energy". If we wanted a name that implies safety, better quality, availability and lower cost we could even try "lean energy".

3. Investment in mass transit infrastructure. The U.S. is the world's #1 economy with the worst rail, bus and subway infrastructure in the world. We can make excuses about geography and history, or we can use this opportunity get the job done. Let's build railways and rail cars. Beyond the benefits of access and convenience, economic stimulus, and reduced environmental impact, good mass transit offers another benefit: learning and personal improvement. When commuting alone in a car for 1 or 2 hours per day, your choices for personal development and learning are limited to radio (no help there) and books on tape. The Japanese publish and read twice as much for a population half of the size of the U.S. A major contributor to this is the time available to read on trains or buses. Imagine the resulting improvement in our education level if adults or youth of driving age spent 20 minutes each day reading on mass transit.

Just like the second oil shock in 1973 brought the Toyota Production System to light when the Japanese government became aware that Toyota alone was turning a profit regardless of record prices of imported raw materials, I have hope that this latest oil shock will raise the awareness of how we can kaizen our energy use. It took more than 25 years after the first oil shock for lean to become mainstream. We don't have 25 more years to figure this out so let's get to work.

How many wastes can you spot in this video?

What are the causes of these wastes?

How would you redesign this system?

Despite the "push", is this system better or worse than rush hour in your country?

Thanks to Chris S for spotting and sharing this.

In a puzzling way, much of the focus was on quality circles and kaizen activities which are conducted after hours on a voluntary basis in Japan. The pressure to put in overtime work on a voluntary basis, presumably for the good of the company and therefore the employee, is an abhorrent aspect of the work culture of many Japanese companies, including Toyota. One 30-year old employee died from overwork after 106 hours of such unpaid overtime. Yet what does it have to do with kaizen? Did this 30-year old spend 106 hours of overtime doing kaizen, or is that a diversion from the fact that this sort of overtime exists more broadly within the work culture?

The gist of this news is that thanks to the efforts of a new and more activist labor union's lobbying efforts, Toyota has agreed to pay overtime for hours workers spend in QC circle and kaizen activities, beyond the limit of 2 hours per month beyond which was considered voluntary. Within traditional Japanese culture, participation in group activities is almost never voluntary, whether it is going out drinking with co-workers or quality improvement activities. Almost as much as the Western mind expects to have personal time and time with their family, the Japanese have valued group harmony and solidarity. Leaving promptly after 8 hours of work or declining excessive overtime is a career-limiter, to say the least.

The BBC reports that Toyota acts on overwork culture:

Toyota is taking steps to deal with Japan's corporate culture that has been criticised for being workaholic.

It is to pay workers more overtime for attending out-of-hours meetings to discuss manufacturing methods.

While the title attracts attention, it is questionable whether Toyota's compliance with the request to pay for overtime work that they considered voluntary will do anything to ease overwork at that company. Toyota is not easing the pressure to take part in overtime activity or to put in long-hours, merely paying for these hours.

Titles such as Toyota to pay overtime allowances for 'kaizen' activities cloud the issue. It falsely implies that Toyota does not pay for kaizen activities, which in many ways it does. This decision is in response to a ruling on a case of death by overwork of one of its employees. However, to the skeptic it may seem like smoke and mirrors: it costs Toyota much less to pay for overtime pay than to actually cut back on overtime, thereby increasing the number of equivalent employees needed to get the job done, at a higher total burden

No small part of the responsibility for this case of death from overwork rests with Japanese labor unions looking after the overall best interest of their members in the long-term, at the short term expense of individual members. While overall Toyota has provided tremendous stability of employment for their unionized workforce because for better and worse the labor unions in Japan are truly collaborators with industry rather than challengers. Japanese labor unions are mice compared to the lions of the UAW. But the ultimate responsibility rests with the leadership at Toyota, and how they choose to address this issue in the future.

At this moment Toyota is understandably in midst of controlling the message to spin this issue in its best favor. One particular quote from Google news struck me as smacking of cynical PR horse hockey:

"Many times quality control circles meetings are held in the company's facilities," said Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco.

"We decided that if it is an official meeting in a company building, and if the meeting is officially recorded, then we will pay for all the time."

and

"We looked at the importance of the activity and we realised it played a big role in improving our overall quality. We want to continue encouraging the participation," said the spokesman.

It is simply not credible that Toyota looked at their QC circle activities and just lately "realised it played a bit role in improving our overall quality" to conclude that continued promotion of it was necessary, or that it had never occurred to anyone at Toyota that official recorded business in a company building was anything other than important work done by valued employees who deserved to get paid. The real issue has very little to do with kaizen, but with the other pillar of the Toyota business philosophy: respect for people.