We stand on the shoulders of the leaders who came before us.

• Eliyahu Goldratt

  The pace of the system is set by its constraint. Speeding up a step that is not the constraint does not raise throughput.

  In your plant: Find the one constraint and run the plant to its pace, and you ship more without adding people or overtime.

• Jim Collins

  The right people are in the seats, the current facts are faced, and a simple aim is held long enough to compound.

  In your plant: Right people in the right seats, facing the current facts, with one simple aim held long enough to compound: steady gains year over year instead of a new program every quarter.

• W. Edwards Deming

  Improve the system. Separate common-cause variation from a special cause before you change the process. Educate people, and drive out fear.

  In your plant: Fix the system, not the person; tell common-cause from special-cause variation before you change anything, and you stop chasing noise and cut scrap and rework.

• Masaaki Imai

  Kaizen is small improvement by everyone, every day, at the place where the work happens. Design a better way, test it, verify it, standardize it, then improve it again.

  In your plant: Small improvements by everyone, every day, at the place where the work happens, then standardized, so changeovers get shorter and stay shorter.

• Genichi Taguchi

  Quality is designed in so the result stays stable when conditions shift, rather than inspected in after the work is done.

  In your plant: Design quality in so parts stay in spec when material, people or conditions shift, so you spend less on inspection and fewer complaints reach the customer.

• Stephen R. Covey

  Renewal of people is part of the operating system. The FranklinCovey habit titled Sharpen the Saw is steady renewal for people: physical, mental, social and emotional, and spiritual.

  In your plant: Steady renewal of people (Sharpen the Saw) keeps a crew sharp and staying, so knowledge doesn't walk out the door with burnout.

• Clarence “Kelly” Johnson

  Keep it simple. Use small teams of great people. Put the engineers right beside the shop floor, and plan production while the prototype is still being built. He led Lockheed’s Skunk Works and told his story in Kelly: More Than My Share of It All.

  In your plant: A small team of strong people, with engineers beside the shop floor and production planned alongside the first build, gets a new part or line from drawing to steady output faster and with fewer handoffs.

• “KAIZEN can be applied in any type of organization, regardless of sector.”

  Masaaki Imai. Kaizen Institute interview.

• “Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.”

  W. Edwards Deming, Point 13. Deming Institute, the fourteen points.

• “It is wrong to suppose that if you can't measure it, you can't manage it – a costly myth.”

  W. Edwards Deming. Deming Institute, on that myth.

• “Emphasizes the need for self-renewal and continuous improvement to succeed in and sustain the other habits.”

  FranklinCovey, on the habit titled Sharpen the Saw. FranklinCovey, The 7 Habits.

Outside a quotation, the word is kaizen, in lowercase, with no trademark mark.