Henry Ford's Lean Vision: Enduring Principles from the First Ford Motor Plant

Japanese manufacturers have made concepts like kaizen (continuous improvement), poka-yoke (error-proofing), and just-in-time famous. When the Japanese began to adopt these techniques from the Ford Motor Company during the early twentieth century, they knew exactly what they were getting: proven methods for mass-producing any product or delivering any service cheaply but well.

Henry Ford's methods, however, went well beyond the synergistic and mutually supporting techniques that constitute wh...