Yesterday I visited a Toyota branch office.
While waiting in the unmanned reception (a result of removing waste, known as muda in Japanese, I guess) I had the chance to study the five posters hanging there with the main principles in The Toyota Way:
- Challenge: Form a long-term vision and meet challenges with courage and creativity.
- Kaizen (continuous improvement): Improve business operations continuously, always driving for innovation and evolution.
- Genchi Genbutsu (go and see): Go to the source to find the facts to make correct decisions, build consensus and achieve goals at best speed.
- Respect: Respect others. Make every effort to understand each other, take responsibility and do your best to build mutual trust.
- Teamwork: Stimulate personal and professional growth, share the opportunities of development and maximize individual and team performance.
What a great way to prepare for a meeting about data quality improvement.
Liliendahl on Data Quality 
Interesting that you post this. So, the question I ask is why Toyota has serious quality issues worldwide? Apparently, The Toyota Way isn’t working very well..someone’s not doing their job.
Thanks for the comment Jay. Of course Toyota will have everyday data quality issues just like every other enterprise on this planet despite that the organization has these fine principles baked-in. And despite that everyone in the organization may spell and explain “kaizen” and “genchi genbutsu”, it doesn’t mean that there will not be moments for downstream cleansing – here some of those mentioned in Top 5 Reasons for Downstream Cleansing .