Jishuken, the voluntary study group on the Toyota Production System, began inside Toyota. Managers from manufacturing, production control and production engineering found problems on the shop floor in a single day, pointed them out to the supervisors, and then worked with the floor every week on improvements.
Because the results were large, the activity spread to suppliers. Today it is mainly joint study among suppliers.
Genchi genbutsu means the actual place and the actual thing. A Japanese university bulletin says that a deep understanding of a situation requires looking directly at the facts on the front line, in the spirit of genchi genbutsu.
The same bulletin tells a story about Ohno Taiichi of Toyota from his years as a plant manager. He was famous for carrying chalk in his pocket. When a machine did not perform as expected, he drew a circle on the floor with it and gave an order: Soko ni tatte mite ore. “Stand there and watch.”
In 1999, Japan passed the Basic Act on the Promotion of Core Manufacturing Technology. The law speaks of jukuren monozukuri rōdōsha, skilled manufacturing workers who have mastered the necessary skills and the knowledge that goes with them. It notes that such workers are in short supply.
Article 13 calls for making effective use of the skills and knowledge of these workers, including former skilled workers.
According to the business magazine President, new employees at Toyota, in both administrative and engineering positions, spend about six months in factory and sales training. Only then are they assigned to their departments.
In May 1965, NEC launched what it named the ZD undō, the Zero Defects movement. Its president, Kobayashi Kōji, had seen the ZD mark during a visit to Hughes Aircraft in the summer of 1964. ZD stood for a slogan about doing work without defects.
Kobayashi wanted more than a movement against defects. He also wanted to awaken a sense of participation in the company among ordinary frontline employees.
Many Japanese workplaces use 5S, five words that begin with the letter s in Japanese: seiri, seiton, seisō, seiketsu and shitsuke.
A Japanese business glossary defines them in turn. Seiri is separating what is needed from what is not, and getting rid of what is not. Seiton is deciding where and how each thing is kept, so that it is easy to use. Seisō is cleaning, so that work can begin at once. Seiketsu is keeping the first three in place. Shitsuke is making the habit stick.
In 1951, Toyota began an activity in which employees submit creative ideas for improvement. Today it is called the sōi kufū teian seido, the creative idea suggestion system. In March 1953, Toyota adopted the company slogan Yoi shina, yoi kangae, good products, good ideas.
The cumulative number of suggestions passed one million in 1974, ten million in 1984 and forty million in 2011.
On October 18, 1999, Nissan, led by Carlos Ghosn, announced the Nissan Revival Plan. The plan called for cutting about 21,000 jobs worldwide and closing five plants in Japan, among them the Murayama plant.
Sources differ on which other plants were on the list.
Toyota’s association of parts suppliers, the Kyōhōkai, was founded in December 1943. Its first chairman was Akai Hisayoshi.
It grew out of an earlier association, the Kyōryokukai (Cooperation Association). That name was given in November 1939, at the first meeting with subcontractors in the Tōkai region.
Japan’s Subcontract Act, enacted in 1956, forbids a parent company to reduce the agreed price it pays a subcontractor. If it does, the Japan Fair Trade Commission can recommend that it stop and restore the losses the subcontractor suffered.
From January 2026, the law carries a new name, the Act on Ensuring Fair Transactions with Small and Medium Contractors.