How Toyota outproduces Ford

Perhaps this should be "outproduced"..... these ideas are, at this point, creaky and ancient. I'd be willing to concede that they may have been an advantage in the '70s.<p>Heck, you could paraphrase it as "What Henry Ford did, but even more so!"<p>Edit: with a bit more thought: The example is completely contrived and misleadingly false. For "batch" processing you have 30 person-minutes. For continuous flow processing: 30 person-minutes as well. The example cheats by throwing two extra people at it.

If you want to know how Toyota outproduces Ford, go pick up a copy of the book The Machine that Changed the World. It outlines all of Toyota's lean production methods.<p>Continuous flow processing doesn't even scratch the surface of how far ahead Toyota is with Lean.

If I understand correctly, the description is off. Ford pioneered the assembly line which outputs cars one at time through a continuous flow. Japan's innovations have more to due with labor management if I recall.

Does this remind anyone else of pipelining in computer processor design?<p>This article brings me back..

Well golly, maybe Ford should pay this guy a million dollars to explain it to them. Apparently they're all retarded and don't employ any logistics experts or industrial engineers.<p>The #1 reason Toyota generally outperforms Ford is that Toyota is not burdened with an extremely expensive and aging union work force.<p>&#62;* is more efficient - less material lying around &#62;* reduces costs - less inventory<p>Left off: *Leaves the whole line catastrophically vulnerable to supply chain disruptions and equipment failures.<p>A lot of these JIT oriented production methods and floorspace optimizations associated with Japan are presented as clear win innovations. The truth is that historically Japanese plants had tight warehousing and floor space constraints and had to optimize for that. If you're not so constrained they're often silly ideas.