Toyota Management System

Monden's book on the Toyota Management System emphasizes that the productivity of Toyota is not the result of any single factor like just-in-time manufacturing or total quality control, but a synergy of new thinking in many different areas: financial management; costing; functional organization; production management; product development management; international strategy; personnel management etc. He dwells longer on costing methods especially target costing and kaizen (processual improvement) costing methods and Toyota's use of IT to leverage and enable just-in-time purchasing, production and marketing. He also explains how Toyota's focus on generating internal capital rather than inviting external investment; having a flat organizational structure with workforce level responsibility; domain and functional organization; etc. contributed to Toyota's phenomenal growth. On the flip side, he leaves you wanting for more information by dropping interesting hints at some places and leaving the ensuing questions unanswered. But this does not dilute the merit of the book.