What is the difference between the Toyota Production System and Lean Manufacturing?
This question comes up quite often. For all practical purposes, the two terms mean the same thing. The term “Lean Manufacturing” was coined by James Womac and Daniel Jones in their 1990 book The Machine That Changed The World to describe the phenomenal success that Japanese manufacturers were having in global markets. Since the Toyota Motor Company was the most successful of these Japanese companies to explain the Japanese manufacturing philosophy with their supply base and strategic partners, the term “Toyota Production System, or TPS, was born. Regardless of what it is called, the goal is always to eliminate waste from processes in order to reduce total lead-time.
