This event is open to all including U-M students, faculty, and staff.

Title:
The Toyota Way, Lean, and Toyota Kata: What’s up with this?

Abstract:
Professor Emeritus Jeffrey Liker (author of The Toyota Way) and MSIOE Mike Rother (author of Toyota Kata) discuss the core ideas of their books. The Toyota Way, second edition, explains Toyota’s management philosophy through fourteen principles, with scientific thinking as the central connection point. Toyota Kata explains how we move from talking about such things as scientific thinking and a growth mindset and the practice of developing people to think scientifically to work toward challenging goals of any kind.

Bio:
Jeffrey K. Liker is Professor Emeritus, Industrial and Operations Engineering at The University of Michigan and President of Liker Lean Advisors, LLC. He is author of the best-selling book, The Toyota Way, Second Edition, and has co-authored nine other books about Toyota including The Toyota Way to Service Excellence, Designing the Future, and The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership. A recent graphic novel with Eduardo Lander and Tom Root tells the story of lean transformation at a mail-order company: Lean in a High-Variety Environment. His articles and books have won thirteen Shingo Prizes for Research Excellence. He was inducted into the Association of Manufacturing Excellence Hall of Fame and the Shingo Academy.

Mike Rother is an engineer (MS IOE '89), researcher and teacher who works to develop scientific thinking in individuals, teams and organizations. He shares his findings widely and is in the Association for Manufacturing Excellence Hall of Fame.