(University of Michigan: Ann Arbor, MI) -- This course, based on the book, Toyota Kata, by Mike Rother (McGraw-Hill, 2010) presents the next level of thinking in lean and operations management.

It’s been difficult to maintain lean improvements. Organizations’ efforts have generated many successes, but not many sustainable ones. We tend to involve dedicated lean experts, who become a constraint to sustained improvement. When we turn our attention to the next improvement project, the one just completed degrades. Overall improvement progress is slow, and the cultural change to continuous improvement is minimal.

We know how to make improvement more sustainable and continuous, and that’s what is taught in the Toyota Kata course. A key is creating a lean culture where improvement occurs on a daily basis, coached by managers. The shift in improvement involves less emphasis on a project approach led by lean staff, toward an everyday activity led by managers.

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