in factory meeting rooms and at various processes along the
production lines.
This way, whenever someone starts griping, “We can’t do
that,” we can save our breath and just point at the sign.
These signboard statements of the “basic spirit” for
improvement can serve as bold reminders for workers who
have forgotten what the basic spirit is all about.
If not out of sight, the “basic spirit” is less likely to be kept
out of mind.
Approach to Production as a Whole
Fixed Ideas and the JIT Production Approach
In most factories, fixed ideas about how things should be
manufactured are unwittingly created over the years. The fact
that they get created is bad enough. Worse still is the fact that
they are quickly adopted as the gospel truth.
In other words, such fixed ideas are developed into a local
“mythology” at each factory, and the factory’s inhabitants are