Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from chapter 3 of the new book, The Lean CEO: Leading the Way to World-Class Excellence (McGraw-Hill Education, 2015), by Jacob Stoller. In this chapter, “West Meets East and the Unbelievable,” Stoller relates the events that led to the widespread adoption of the Toyota Production System in the United States during the late 1980s.

In 1988, as kaizen was beginning to have an impact in North America, Masaaki Imai organized a week-long training event at the Hartford graduate center of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The presenters included Yoshiki Iwata and two of his Shingijutsu colleagues, Akira Takenaka and Chihiro Nakao.

One of the workshop attendees was George Koenigsaecker, president of nearby Jake Brake, the nickname for Jacob’s Vehicle Equipment Co.

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