I came across these principles of do business as used by the Toyota Motor Corporation in their manufacture of motor vehicles.

I found their view to doing business enlightening, thus I share those principles with you here.

1. Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term goals
2. Create continuous process flow to bring problems to the surface
3. Use “pull” systems to avoid overproduction
4. Level out the workload
5. Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time
6. Standardized tasks are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee empowerment
7. Use visual control so no problems are hidden
8. Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes
9. Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy, and teach it to others
10. Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company’s philosophy
11. Respect your extended network of partners and suppliers by challenging them and helping them improve
12. Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation (genchi, genbutsu)
13. Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options; implement decisions rapidly
14. Become a learning organization through relentless reflection and continuous improvement (kaizen)

Toyota has long been recognized as an industry leader in manufacturing and production. Three stories of its origin have been found, one that they studied Piggly-Wiggly’s just-in-time distribution system, one that they followed the writings of W. Edwards Deming, and one that they were given the principles of business from a WWII US government training program, Training Within Industry.

Which ever reference they used, they are the largest single manufacturer of vehicles in the world. They are doing something right!