Sergio Marchionne Quotes

Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design, manufacturing... layout, processes, and procedures.

In the postwar period, Americans turned away from quality as the principal goal of manufacturing and made cost the principal goal. Japanese, restructuring their companies, made exactly the opposite decision.

Many good American companies have respect for individuals, and practice Kaizen and other TPS {Toyota Production System} tools. But what is important is having all of the elements together as a system. It must be practiced every day in a very consistent manner–not in spurts–in a concrete way on the shop floor.

Quality comes not from inspection, but from improvement of the production process.

For much of Toyota's history, we have ensured the quality and reliability of our vehicles by placing a device called an andon cord on every production line - and empowering any team member to halt production if there's an assembly problem. Only when the problem is resolved does the line begin to move again.

It is in Toyota's DNA that mistakes made once will not be repeated.

We are constantly reviewing our processes to identify areas where we can learn and improve.

The "patron saint" of Japanese quality control, ironically, is an American named W. Edwards Deming, who was virtually unknown in his own country until his ideas of quality control began to make such a big impact on Japanese companies.

If you're going to build a lean enterprise, you can test and measure how often the company ships iterations, how often it fails, how often it is putting things in front of people that don't work.

Unlike the objective of far too many companies, manufacturing is not about a quick 'exit.' It is centered on long-term value creation.

I basically apply with my teams the lean startup principles I used in the private sector - go into Silicon Valley mode, work at startup speed, and attack, doing things in short amounts of time with extremely limited resources.

There is no single development, in either technology or management technique, which by itself promises even one order-of-magnitude improvement within a decade in productivity, in reliability, in simplicity.

The emphasis on innovation and technology in our companies has resulted in a few of them establishing global benchmarks in product design and development, manufacturing practices and human resource capabilities. However, there is no room for complacency.

The thing is, continuity of strategic direction and continuous improvement in how you do things are absolutely consistent with each other. In fact, they're mutually reinforcing.

In the case of Apple, they did originally do production internally, but then along came unbelievably good outsourced manufacturing from companies like Foxconn. We don't have that in the rocket business. There's no Foxconn in the rocket business.

To me, error analysis is the sweet spot for improvement.

Learning to see waste and systematically eliminate it has allowed lean companies such as Toyota to dominate entire industries. Lean thinking defines value as 'providing benefit to the customer'; anything else is waste.

For decades, the pace of technological change in manufacturing has outstripped that in the economy as a whole. And, so, firms - manufacturing firms - have found it easier to continue producing by - with - reducing their workforces.

An exceptional company is the one that gets all the little details right. And the people out on the front line, they know when things are not going right, and they know when things need to be improved. And if you listen to them, you can soon improve all those niggly things which turns an average company into an exceptional company.

As CEO of Cold Stone Creamery, we used a concept called 'search and reapply,' which meant that if we found better ways of doing something, then we would do it.

I was always trying to get people to fix things that are wrong. Now, it was, 'How do I make things that are going good go better?

Advantage comes not from the spectacular or the technical. Advantage comes from a persistent seeking of the mundane edge.

Lean thinking defines value as providing benefit to the customer; anything else is waste.

You must have a supplier relationship of constant improvement.

Detect and fix any problem in a production process at the lowest stage possible.