Lean Production and the Toyota Production System Or, the Case of the Forgoften Production Concepts

Ian Hampson
Additional contact information
Ian Hampson: University of New South Wales

Economic and Industrial Democracy, 1999, vol. 20, issue 3, 369-391

Abstract: Advocates and critics alike have accepted 'lean' images of the Toyota production system. But certain production concepts that are integral to Toyota production system theory and practice actually impede 'leanness'. The most important of these are the concepts of heijunka, or levelled ('balanced') production, and muri, or waste from overstressing machines and personnel. Actual Toyota production systems exist as a compromise between these concepts and the pursuit of leanness via kaizen. The compromise between these contrasting tendencies is influenced by the ability of unions and other aspects of industrial relations regulation to counter practices such as shortnotice overtime and 'management by stress'.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0143831X99203003 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:20:y:1999:i:3:p:369-391

DOI: 10.1177/0143831X99203003

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Economic and Industrial Democracy from Department of Economic History, Uppsala University, Sweden
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().