Well, lean has a principle of not over taxing the system. (Mura is the
word used to call out the reverse of that.) It does not take a brain
surgeon to see that should also be applied to people.

AND...Taiichi Ohno challenged people too. He was pretty tough.

No, I do not second guess them. I still question whether we are
talking about some isolated cases or something truly fundamental to
the Lean culture within Toyota. (No doubt there are other parts of
Japanese culture that are not consistent with Lean. Perhaps it was/is
some of that culture in Toyota.)

I think Agile is basically very consistent with what lean really is.
This does not mean that Toyota always practices true lean (does any
large firm consistently practice true agile?)

Regards, Joe




--- In leandevelopment@yahoogroups.com, David Carlton <carlton@...> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:00:43 -0000, "Joseph Little" <jhlittle@...> said:
>
> > PS. Is it fair to hold Toyota accountable for the mental health of
> > every single one of its employees? Still, it may be true that this
> > death is not just one incident, and that Toyota may be (partially)
> > culpable.
>
> Well, a Japanese labor bureau thought that it was fair to hold them
> accountable in this case; do you see a reason to second-guess them?
> It's certainly not the only story I've heard that makes me think that
> the XP practice of Sustainable Pace isn't in complete harmony with
> Toyota's practices.
>
> David Carlton
> carlton@...
>