ABSTRACT
Through the work of Toyota veterans and scholars like
John Shook, Jeffrey Liker, Art Smalley, and David Meier,
it has become abundantly clear that, at Toyota, before
there were value stream maps, poka yoke, or Just-in-Time, there was TWI. These TWI foundations helped form the
core elements of what we know today as the Toyota
Production System (TPS), but most importantly, what we
need to remember is that at Toyota these fundamental
skills didn’t go away as they progressed to more sophis-
ticated techniques. In fact, these fundamental skills are
what make the higher-level tools work, just like you need
addition and subtraction to do more advanced mathe-
matics, and just like you need to first learn to block and
tackle to win the football game, no matter how talented
your quarterback may be. As we discussed in the last
chapter, practicing basic skills is what the best practitio-
ners in any field of endeavor do to stay on top.
