Where there is no standard, there can be no improvement. For these reasons, standards are the basis for both maintenance and improvement

The message of the Kaizen strategy is that not a day should go by without some kind of improvement being made somewhere in the company.

Progress is impossible without the ability to admit mistakes.

The Kaizen Philosophy assumes that our way of life - be it our working life, our social life, or our home life - deserves to be constantly improved.

Kaizen means ongoing improvement involving everybody, without spending much money.

You can't do kaizen just once or twice and expect immediate results. You have to be in it for the long haul.

All of management's efforts for Kaizen boil down to two words: customer satisfaction.

Kaizen is like a hotbed that nurtures small and ongoing changes, while innovation is like magma that appears in abrupt eruptions from time to time

The standard is not writ on the stone. The definition of the standard is that it is the best way to do the job for now. It should be regarded as a next step to make further improvement.

I believe that management should focus on two particular areas. One is Gemba (shop floor) and the other is customer (not the shareholder).

Under the lean system, any tools which are required for solving problems are used.

How can I pretend that nothing happened?

There is respect for law, and then there is complicity in lawlessness.

Each of us must be committed to maintaining the reputation of all of us. And all of us must be committed to maintaining the reputation of each of us.

It's June in January because I'm in love.

Gold can gild a rotten stick, and dirt sully an ingot.

The proprietor, producing neither by his own labor nor by his implement, and receiving products in exchange for nothing, is either a parasite or a thief.

Leadership is based on complex phenomena.

My interest in biology was pretty much always on the philosophical side.

...Every moment is the right moment.

While having policy debate, we need to hold the race in a way to attract people toward the DPJ.