Simple Time Management

Do you feel as though your work, studying or chores always end up taking too long? Do you feel as though you could be more effective if only you could stay on task?

Maybe you’re convinced it’s a question of will power, or organization, or motivation. The solution, though, might be very simple.

One of the easiest ways to get dramatic improvements in your productivity is to use a timer. You can grab the one from your kitchen, use the alarm on your phone, or try one of the popular free online timers like e.ggtimer.com or Tick Tock Timer.

When you’ve got a timing ticking away, you’ll suddenly discover a new sense of focus which you never knew you had. Here are five specific ways in which your timer will help:

Writing and Working Faster

A lot of the writers I know – of fiction and of non-fiction – use timers to focus for specific periods. It’s all too easy to get distracted when you’ve told yourself that you’ll spend a whole morning on that report or article or short story … when you’ve got thirty minutes to sit down and focus, you’re much more likely to get on with the task at hand.

Timers work particularly well for big tasks without an obvious end point, like clearing your emails. You might not be able to face getting through the whole backlog at once – but spending fifteen focused minutes every day will go a long way to clearing it.

Studying More Effectively

If you’re in school or working towards a qualification, you’ll be spending at least some of your time studying. Your brain can’t focus on learning for hours on end – experts think that it’s best to concentrate for between 25 and 45 minutes, then take a break to recharge.

Next time you sit down to study, try setting a timer for thirty minutes. It’s a lot easier to stay focused and motivated when you know you have a break coming up.

Getting Through Chores

Most of us hate doing chores, and often end up putting them off – which only means they end up being more of a pain! You might well feel the same. One technique that works really well is to spend just five to fifteen minutes on something – it’s surprising how much you can get done.
FlyLady popularized the idea of using a fifteen minute timer to tackle chores, and hosts of fans around the internet testify to the effectiveness of this.

All we ask is that you set a timer and spend 15 minutes a day decluttering. That’s it. Anyone can do anything for only 15 minutes, even if you have to break it down into 5 minutes segments.

(Declutter 15 Minutes a Day – 5 Great Tools That Make it Easy! on FlyLady.net)

Limiting Your Procrastination

We all need to take breaks in order to remain productive. The problem is, it’s all too easy for a twenty-minute break to turn into two hours of browsing the net and giggling at pictures of cats with silly captions.

When you decide it’s time for a break, set a timer. Give yourself around ten – twenty minutes, depending on what you feel you need. Once that alarm goes off, get straight back on track with your next task. (It helps if you’ve made up your mind what to do next before taking your break.)

Making Phone Calls

How often have you been on the phone with someone for far longer than you meant to? It’s easy to lose track of time when you’re chatting, only to realize that a whole hour’s gone by. If you’re making a call, set a timer going (preferably one which has a silent alert, like a pop-up on the screen). Once the alarm goes off, you’ll be reminded to draw the conversation to a close.

If you’re conducting an interview by phone, this is also a good technique to make sure you don’t have to keep one eye on the clock – you can chat away with your full focus on the conversation, and when your alarm goes off to tell you there’s five or ten minutes to go, you can draw things to a close.

Lean Assessment Workshop

In September, our Blackbelt program will kick off with "Lean Strategy and Lean Assessment" module - designed to teach participants an effective way to strategize lean, develop lean roadmap, and create a winning formula for achieving lean excellence.

This module is also offered as a separate, independent Executive Certification program, allowing busy executives to learn key lean strategy topics without taking the entire Blackbelt.

This five-day training and strategy session is only offered every 6 month. We have a few spots left in this highly desirable course. If interested, pleaese call our office at 604-264-1000.

Here is a brief overview of our most powerful methodology: Lean Assessment

Lean Assessment Overview Brief

Most Advanced Blackbelt Certificaton Program

In just several weeks, we will be kicking-off our most advanced certification program, the Blackbelt program. Designed to develop world-class lean leaders, the Blackbelt offers 4 modules of intense, insightful projects. More importantly, the Blackbelt programs includes a complete benchmarking trip to Japan (all travel expenses except flights are included).

Please take a look at our overview video:

Sports car world continues to heat up

Sports car world heats up with Toyota’s LFA

Source: bloomberg

Maurizio Raffone bought a Toyota Motor Corp. Prius hybrid for its top-of-the-line fuel efficiency. In his current search for a new sportscar, he said the Japanese carmaker hadn’t sprung to mind.

“Would I consider buying a Toyota high-end sports car?” said Raffone, a London-based director at Commerzbank AG. “I might think about it, but ultimately I’d choose something with a trident, a prancing horse or a bull on its hood,” he said, referring to cars made by Fiat SpA’s Maserati and Ferrari marques, and Volkswagen AG’s Lamborghini.

As the world’s largest carmaker tries to rebuild its reputation for quality following record recalls, President Akio Toyoda, a racing fan, has said he wants to add more fun to his cars. Under Toyoda, who became president in June 2009, the company has taken orders for the Lexus LFA $375,000 supercar, is readying an “affordable” rear-wheel drive coupe and may even add a sporty version of the Prius.

“Cars like the LFA are brand-builders in the overall product portfolio,” said Ashvin Chotai, London-based managing director of Intelligence Automotive Asia Ltd., an industry consultant. These cars, at the periphery of Toyota’s business model, “are less about volume and more about excitement.”

The projects fall under a new Sports Vehicle Management Division set up in January, a month before Toyoda flew to Washington to face congressional questioning on the company’s recalls for problems related to unintended acceleration.

The unit expands a similar group spearheaded by Toyoda in 2007 and aims to “reinforce sports vehicle product planning,” according to a company statement.

‘Affordable’ Sports Car

The “affordable” sports car, known as the FT-86, is being developed with affiliate Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd.’s Subaru unit. Toyota plans to introduce the model by the end of 2011.

Toyoda touts the role of racing in car development and started participating in a 24-hour endurance race in 2007 in Nurburgring, Germany, where various versions of the LFA were tested.

His fervor for racing is reflected on his business card, where a cartoon image of Morizo, his race-car driver alter ego, flashes a peace sign with one hand and cradles a helmet in the other.

The carmaker has firm orders for all 500 units of the limited-production LFA, according to the company. The car will enter production in December.

Toyota gained 1.8 percent to close at 3,085 yen in Tokyo.

‘Technologically Brilliant’

“The LFA is technologically brilliant, but completely overpriced” at almost triple the price of Porsche SE’s 911 Turbo, said Mark Sweeting, an investment banker in London who has owned numerous sporty European cars.

Toyota’s sports cars no longer in production include the Supra, built between 1986 and 2002 and featured in the 2001 racing movie “The Fast and the Furious,” the MR-S roadster that ended production in 2007, and the Celica, made between 1970 and 2006. The company’s first supercar was the 2000GT, which was featured in the 1967 James Bond movie, “You Only Live Twice,” starring Sean Connery.

“Toyota used to have cool sports cars like the Supra and Corolla Levin,” said Kosuke Kakizawa, a sports car fan in Tokyo who owned a Toyota Cynos coupe in the mid-1990s. “Now, when you think of sports cars, you think of the foreign brands,” he said. Kakizawa now owns an Audi TT coupe.

Raffone, the Prius owner, agreed.

“Toyota should really focus on its cutting edge eco- friendly technology and leave the sports cars to the niche manufacturers,” he said.

Lowered Suspension

Last month, Toyota held a test-drive event for its new “G Sports” versions of the Noah and Voxy minivans, which were developed and tuned with the help of race-car drivers and have lowered suspensions, more responsive steering and high- performance brakes.

“These are cars that are sporty without being hardcore sports cars,” to be enjoyed by drivers with families, said Tadashi Yamashina, a senior managing director in charge of the company’s development of sports cars in an interview at the event in Yamanashi prefecture, northwest of Tokyo.

Sports models contribute little to sales volume and profit, Intelligence Automotive’s Chotai said. Toyota sold 1,300 units of the MR-S in Japan in 2006, the last full year it was offered. That compares with 2.27 million cars sold domestically in the fiscal year ended March 2007.

Japanese rival Honda Motor Co. also cut back on sporty cars over the last decade, axing plans for a revamped NSX supercar and ending production of the S2000 roadster in 2009. Instead, Honda introduced the sporty hybrid CR-Z in February.

Toyota displayed a concept hybrid sports car, the FT-HS, at the 2007 Detroit auto show.

Flagship GT-R

Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s third-largest automaker, came out with a more powerful version of its flagship GT-R sports car in 2007.

“The sporty push is understandable since the whole industry is so fixated on improving vehicle fuel economy, which leaves something to be desired” for enthusiasts, said Koji Endo, an auto analyst at Advanced Research Japan in Tokyo.

More sports models may also raise morale inside the company. “Sports cars keep the engineers motivated,” said Edwin Merner, president of Atlantis Investment Research Corp. in Tokyo. “They are worth doing on a limited scale.”

Barbecue at Bob's

Thanks to Bob and Celine, LSI staff had a great
barbecue over the weekend!

Spicy chicken, great steak (Joey's receipe) and my favorite - grilled shrimps - made the day!

San Diego Aug 2010

Here are all of the photos we took while LSI was in San Diego last week. Lots of memories....

Can you do this?

Only at Seaworld!

We're back from San Diego!

The entire LSI team is back from our "company vacation" in San Diego!  We had a very busy 3-days there but had a blast!  We all enjoyed the time together and were able to get to know each other's family members a bit better too.  More info to come... right now we are just recuperating from the busy San Diego trip.

Where is this?

The entire LSI staff is away on a company vacation trip as part of our team building mission.  But can you guess where we are?  First stop is . . .

Customer Driven

This year Toyota has requested independent outside evaluations of its product quality improvement system as part of an ongoing drive to enhance its global system of collecting and analyzing information from the customer. One assessment released a few weeks ago (June 30) by the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) found several new measures “especially promising.”

The report highlights:

• New process called Design Review Based on Failure Mode (DRBFM) was added. Based on the principle of Mieruka (making any important factor in a process visible at the actual work site), the process requires engineers to make a thorough comparison between existing problem-free technologies and all modifications or new technologies to be introduced. By following the standardized process, engineers analyze the implications of any differences that exist between current standard and new standard from the customer viewpoint.

• Regional technical office network was expanded and upgraded to respond more quickly in conducting onsite investigations of reports of serious quality issues (Toyota’s so-called SMART activities, an acronym for Swift Market Analysis and Response Team)

• Unified design responsibility for crucial components was assigned to single divisions (instead of spreading that responsibility across multiple divisions, as occurred formerly) and it has established a separate division to spearhead improvements in design quality--Design Quality Innovation Division, staffed by about 40 engineers—based on customer input in design standards. This is in addition to one hundred or so engineers now employed in the Product Audit Department.

• Customer First training centers will be established in each region to cultivate quality assurance professionals and to ensure information from customers is captured so that it can be fed back to the design process.

The report also suggested:

• More field personnel than Toyota’s present plans and training to equip the field personnel to function effectively from a customer perspective

• Stepping up training for dealers’ maintenance and repair personnel to prevent problems; for example, floor mat interference with accelerator pedals.

• Developing and applying further criteria for evaluating suppliers. Beyond technical capabilities, the report suggested analysis in terms of management expertise and implicit risk.

Conference on Personal Meaning

My uncle is a distinguished and highly respected specialist who holds a PhD in psychology. He is involved in a unique conference called "Conference on Personal Meaning."  I think we can all benefit from learning more about ourselves.  Here's the info:

The International Network on Personal Meaning (INPM) is pleased to announce the 6th Biennial International Meaning Conference to be held August 5-8, 2010 in Vancouver, Canada. The main conference theme this year is: Creating a psychologically healthy workplace: Meaning, spirituality and engagement and is co-hosted by the INPM and Sunshine Coast Health Centre.

In today's highly competitive global economy, building human strengths and fostering resilience at the personal and organizational levels are more important now than ever before. This conference focuses on the positive psychology of meaning, virtues, spirituality, personal responsibility, and worker engagement in enhancing well-being and productivity. The pre-conference workshops emphasize positive psychotherapy, strengths-based assessment, existential and spiritually oriented clinical skills, etc.
INPM brings together world's leading thinkers, researcher, and practitioners to tackle the challenge of creating positive organizations that can survive and flourish in a difficult and uncertain economic time.

The conference will place a premium on providing delegates with opportunities for interactions with speakers and other delegates. Through the principle of collective strategic networking, we hope the conference will facilitate a new vision for the 21st Century and help define what it means to be a psychologically healthy workplace.
We welcome participation by psychologists, counsellors, business & life coaches, human resource specialists, organizational scholars, business consultants, occupational health & safety personnel, as well as leaders in business, industry and non-profit organizations. Students and anyone interested in developing a fulfilling career or vocation are also welcome.
For more information, please go to: http://www.meaning.ca/

Dr. Paul Wong Brief Bio


Dr. Paul T. P. Wong received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Toronto. He has held professorial positions at various universities, such as York University, University of Toronto, and Trent University. As the Founding Director of the Graduate Program in Counselling Psychology at Trinity Western University (TWU), he has established an accredited and widely recognized graduate program. More recently, he served as the Division Chair of Psychology and Business Administration at Tyndale University College. He had been a visiting scientist to the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of British Columbia. He has been invited to lecture in numerous universities in Asia and North America. Currently, he devotes most to his time to writing and private practice.

A few more photos

from our beautiful cruise on Friday.....

Photos from LSI Dinner Cruise!

LSI hosted a dinner cruise on Friday around our beautiful Vancouver harbour!  We had a splended time with our clients on a perfect summer evening.

Click below to see all of our photos from this great evening.

LSI Summer Cruise 2010

Fascinating insights about Japan

Thanks to our friend Ron from Japan:

1. More than 70% of Japan consists of mountains, including more than 200 volcanoes. While poor in natural resources, it is more successful than most in making use of human resources to compete with other countries.

2. Mt. Fuji, the tallest mountain in Japan, is an active volcano. It is said that one must climb Mt. Fuji once in one’s life, but “only a fool does it twice.”

3. Before climbing Mt. Fuji, how about a traditional breakfast? …

steamed rice, soy bean paste soup, and side dishes such as grilled fish, a small sweet rolled omelet, pickles, dried seaweed, fermented beans, and salad. It tastes a lot better than it sounds!

4. Sometimes the trains are so crowded railway staff are employed to cram passengers inside. But always the staffs wear white gloves when they do their cramming. Speaking of cramming, more than a million people are estimated to pass through Shinjuku Station every day.

5. Many Japanese celebrate Christmas with the purchase of Kentucky fried chicken and a birthday cake.

6. There are four different writing systems in Japan, romaji, katakana, hiragana, and kanji.

7. Japan is more than green tea. Coffee is very popular and Japan imports approximately 85% of Jamaica's annual coffee production.

8. Many toilets in Japan are heated, have a built-in bidet and a sound system to cover up embarassing noises. Most homes have special bathroom slippers that folks slip on each time they enter the toilet area.

9. When moving into an apartment it is often required to give the landlord a "gift" of money equal to two months' rent. This is called “key money”. The key is not gold-coated.
10. When traveling at top speed (300km/h or 187mph) the shinkansen requires 3 minutes and 45 seconds to come to a complete stop. Trains on some routes run approximately every 5 minutes. The trains leave on schedule to the minute under normal circumstances.

11. Shaving your head is a way to show contrition in Japan.

12. The term karaoke means "empty orchestra" in Japanese. Your “juhachiban” or “no. 18” is the song that you feel most comfortable to perform at a karaoke club as it is the song you sing best—or have sung the most!

13. On average, it takes about 7-10 years of intensive training to become a fugu (blowfish) chef. This training may not be needed in the future as some fish farms in Japan are producing non-poisonous fugu.

14. Ovens are not very common in Japanese kitchens. Most people use gas table and/or microwave oven. Refrigerators are small, freezer compartments are smaller! Daily shopping for food is the norm.

15. Japanese snowmen are made with two balls, not three. The man in the moon is seen as a rabbit.

Original Guiding Principles at Toyota

Honor the language and spirit of the law of every nation and undertake open and fair corporate activities to be a good corporate citizen of the world.

Respect the culture and customs of every nation and contribute to economic and social development through corporate activities in the communities.

Dedicate ourselves to providing clean and safe products and to enhancing the quality of life everywhere through all our activities.

Create and develop advanced technologies and provide outstanding products and services that fulfill the needs of customers worldwide.

Foster a corporate culture that enhances individual creativity and teamwork value, while honoring mutual trust and respect between labor and management.

Pursue growth in harmony with the global community through innovative management.

Work with business partners in research and creation to achieve stable, long-term growth and mutual benefits, while keeping ourselves open to new partnerships.

How to exchange business cards in Japan

Lean Sensei has taken more than 350 people to Japan as part of the Japan Lean Tour.  This is the birthplace of Toyota Way and until you see the Toyota Plant in Toyota City, you haven't quite seen the "real" lean plant.  But before you even step into Japan, there are few things to keep in mind.  Over the next several days, we will show you some insights about Japan and Toyota.

First, you have to learn how to exchange business cards properly in Japan!  Take a look at this great video from youtube.

LSI Connection

What is LSI Connection?  Stay tuned, as we will announce more information later this week!  Sneak preview of the logo for LSI Connection can be seen below:

Latest letter from Jim Womack

Here's the latest letter from Jim Womack, author of Lean Thinking:

Dear David

My LEI colleague Dave LaHote is fond of saying that managers - and especially senior managers - overestimate their effectiveness, particularly as they seek to improve their organizations through formal initiatives. And they underestimate the impact (often negative) of their daily personal actions on employees. Recently I witnessed a striking example while visiting a metal casting plant in a developing country owned by a multi-national headquartered in a highly developed country. (I hope you will understand why I'm careful not to identify places I visit unless I can offer praise. I try to show respect for my hosts when they allow me to be a guest at their gemba and I truly want them to do better. Public shame and blame can never be an effective means to that end.)

The plant was in an inherently dangerous industry and I was surprised and pleased to see a visual display at the entrance to the shop floor showing the causes of reportable injuries in the past month. It was very detailed and up to date. The senior plant managers accompanying me stated that it truly focused everyone's mind on safety and was part of a comprehensive safety-awareness program mandated by headquarters to reduce injuries.

But then I did some math. The chart showed that in the last month 12 percent of the plant's workers had lost days from work due to injuries! And the chart also indicated that this was a typical month. Simple arithmetic showed that the average worker could expect to be injured to the extent of losing time from work once every 8 months! There seemed to be a yawning gap between the goals of the safety initiative and the results, and I wondered why as I continued my walk through the facility.
As it happened, the plant was experiencing a serious quality issue with its massive engine castings for heavy-duty vehicles. As a result a senior manager from headquarters had just arrived. Our paths crossed at the shaking table designed to knock the remaining sand out of the castings as they tumbled down a chute from the molding operation. Just as I walked up, the senior manager was explaining that to solve a problem it was important to trace it to the source, which might be the shaking table. And suddenly this very large man mustered surprising strength and agility to swing himself by an overhead bar up onto the shaking table while it operated, as massive castings tumbled down the chute and bounded across the table toward him.

At first I thought this was a crazy risking of this senior manager's own life. But then, as I turned to see the looks on the workers' faces as they stood watching him, I realized that it was more likely that he was risking their lives in the future. The official message of the company's senior management was that injuries were a top priority for management, to be reduced through a comprehensive safety program. But the actions of one senior manager -- well intentioned in the sense that managers certainly should go to the source of problems rather than talk about them in a conference room -- sent an opposite and much more powerful message: If you want to get ahead around here you need to dive in and take action without regard to risks. Will this become, I wondered, a case of homicide by example?

This was a single and blatant instance, of course, and especially upsetting for me because I had just driven through the remote shanty town where the front-line workers lived, with little chance for good wages beyond this one plant. But as I thought about what I had seen I realized that I see less salient and dangerous examples all the time in my travels.

For example, recently I have seen many instances of managers trying to turn over a new leaf by deploying hoshin kanri, A3 analysis, and standardized work (including for line managers) as part of comprehensive lean programs. And the workforce usually responds very positively. But then something goes wrong in the operation or the newly minted "lean" managers just get tired after a long day. And the modern manager that lurks in us all springs forth to give top-down direction, to prescribe a solution before there is any agreement on the problem, or to resort to workarounds without documentation that undercut all efforts to impose standards. (I could relate more than a few examples from our own organization involving its leader -- me -- but will spare myself the pain. Suffice to say that I am often guilty as charged.)
Fortunately, I sometimes see counter examples as well. A few weeks ago I spent a day with a CEO I will call Bob as he struggled to stick with his efforts to manage and improve his company's core processes by A3. He was going against an entire work life of giving orders from his office and managing by results and his A3's really weren't very good. He struggled in particular with getting to the root cause. And I noted that the other elements of his company's lean initiative were pretty rough as well, especially efforts to achieve basic stability in core processes.
But I was struck by Bob's doggedness, even at the end of a long day when many things had gone wrong and he was tempted to revert to old ways. And I saw the remarkable effect he was having on his direct reports, who were getting out of their offices and asking questions they had never asked before, while struggling with their far-from-perfect A3s. What I was seeing was the powerful impact of positive personal example in a situation where the formal elements of the company's lean initiative did not yet appear to be sophisticated or effective. I knew that a year or two from now, Bob's organization will be far down the path toward a lean enterprise while the casting plant will still have a glossy safety program with nothing to show for it.

So I urge everyone, and I certainly include myself, to do a bit of hansei (critical self-reflection) at frequent intervals. Ask a simple question: Is the message that I and the other leaders of my organization are sending through formal rules, programs, initiatives, and new management tools like A3, the same as the message we are sending daily through our personal example? And if not, what can we do to make our walk consistent with our talk?

Best regards,

Jim

Toyota and Tesla Begins Joint Development

Toyota, Tesla Said to Prepare Electric RAV4, RX Prototypes

Source: Bloomberg

Toyota Motor Corp. and Tesla Motors Inc. will develop battery-powered test versions of the Japanese carmaker’s RAV4 and Lexus RX in the first stage of a partnership in electric vehicles, a person familiar with the matter said.

Tesla said July 10 that it will deliver two prototypes vehicles to Toyota this month without identifying the models. While Toyota also aims to test an electric Corolla compact car, the RAV4 and RX light trucks are better suited to the weight of Tesla’s battery pack, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the vehicles haven’t been announced yet.

Toyota’s President Akio Toyoda said last week the partnership with Tesla, maker of the $109,000 electric Roadster, is the first of several the Toyota City, Japan-based company wants to pursue in advanced auto technologies. Toyota, the world’s largest seller of hybrid autos, bought a $50 million stake in Palo Alto, California-based Tesla this month.

“We anticipate range and acceleration exceeding that of other announced electric vehicles of this class,” Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla, said today in an e-mailed message. He declined to discuss project details.

Keisuke Kirimoto, a Tokyo-based spokesman for Toyota, said he couldn’t confirm the models. Toyota bought its stake in Tesla July 2, he said.

‘Cost Advantage’

The target for a model developed with Tesla would be for a car that costs about $40,000 with 150 miles (240 kilometers) of driving range per charge, the person familiar with the plans said.

“Toyota and Tesla engineering teams have made a lot of progress in a short amount of time,” JB Straubel, Tesla’s chief technology officer, said in a July 10 e-mail message.

Toyota’s American depositary receipts, each representing two ordinary shares, rose 13 cents to $71.20 at 9:44 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares were unchanged at 3,120 yen today in Tokyo trading. Tesla, which listed shares last month, rose 42 cents, or 2.4 percent, to $17.82 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading.

Carmakers are under pressure from regulators to develop models that use little or no petroleum and emit fewer gases linked to global warming.

Unlike Toyota, Nissan Motor Co., and other companies readying battery models, Tesla vehicles use thousands of the same type of small lithium-ion battery cells that power laptop computers.

Panasonic Venture

Toyota Executive Vice President Shinichi Sasaki told reporters Friday in Nagoya, Japan, that the company wants to study that approach to see if it has advantages over using larger types of battery cells.

Panasonic Corp., which has a joint venture with Toyota that makes nickel-metal hydride batteries for hybrid autos and lithium-ion batteries for plug-in models, said in January it would work with Tesla to develop modified lithium-ion cells for use in electric cars.

“Since Tesla didn’t develop its battery pack from scratch, there’s a cost advantage,” said Hiroshi Ataka, an analyst at consulting company IHS Global Insight in Tokyo.

Nissan, Japan’s third-largest carmaker, plans to start selling its Leaf electric car in the U.S. and Japan later this year. General Motors Co., the Detroit-based carmaker planning an initial public offering, will also introduce its Chevrolet Volt plug-in car in the U.S. late this year.

Toyota’s project with Tesla is separate from a previously announced electric car Toyota aims to sell by 2012, Toyoda said last week.

“While Toyota may be studying Tesla’s technology, Toyota has been researching its own electric car batteries, so it may be unlikely to use Tesla’s,” Ataka said.

Unintended Acceleration appears to be driver's fault

Breaking news from Wall Street Journal

After receiving more than 3,000 reports of sudden acceleration in Toyota vehicles, the U.S. Department of Transportation has concluded that driver error was actually at fault. According to The Wall Street Journal, investigators analyzing different data recorders from Toyota vehicles found that at the time of these sudden acceleration crashes, the throttles were wide open rather and the brakes were not depressed. Thus, they have reason to believe that drivers were mistakenly stomping on the accelerator rather than slamming the brakes in an attempt to avoid these crashes.

Brief history of Mr. Toyoda

Live LEAN T-shirt

Some people have already emailed us to say that they love the idea of "live LEAN" theme, so we are seriously thinking about creating live LEAN T-shirts. Simple design like this may suffice..... what do you think? 

Live LEAN

For early part of 2010, LSI focused on "Go Lean" theme - no doubt influenced by our passion for the Olympic here in Vancouver (where the theme was "Go World"). But now that the Olympic is over, perhaps it's time to look at the concept of "Go Lean" from a different perspective.

So I was thinking that maybe it's "Live Lean." but with the focus on "lean" portion, which means that the phrase should really say "Live LEAN" (where lean is in capitals). The idea here is that applying lean thinking and lean principles has to go well beyond the methodologies and system we often talk about....because we really have to breath, live, and endorse lean in all we do in our lives if we were to become true lean believers and lean evangelists.

So what do you think?  Does "Live LEAN" makes sense to you?  Do you like the idea?  Let us know, because we may just surprise you by designing a "Live LEAN" T-shirt if enough people show interest. We might even give some away.

While you are thinking, download these Live LEAN wallpapers and enjoy!

TOYOTA TO EXPAND PRODUCT QUALITY FIELD OFFICES

This just came through our contact at Toyota:

TOYOTA TO EXPAND PRODUCT QUALITY FIELD OFFICES ACROSS UNITED STATES AND CANADA

San Francisco Field Office Launches This Month; Seven North American Offices Planned

Significantly Enhances Field Data Collection and Technical Capabilities

TORRANCE, Calif., July 8, 2010 – Toyota Motor Sales (TMS), USA., Inc., today announced that it is expanding its Product Quality Field Office program to four additional US regional sales areas over the next 12 months, following the success of a pilot program launched in the New York region in late 2009. TMS also announced that it will officially open its newest Product Quality Field Office in San Francisco this month, and Toyota Canada Inc. (TCI) announced that it will establish Product Quality Field Offices in Toronto and Calgary, for a total of seven offices across North America.

Staffed by technical and engineering specialists with expertise drawn from across Toyota's global operations, these Product Quality Field Offices strengthen Toyota's North American field technical presence and data gathering and reporting capabilities, enhancing the company's ability to detect, analyze and respond to customer and quality issues in the field.

Product Quality Field Offices are being established with the mandate to investigate specific field quality issues related to unique regional, geographical or environmental conditions in each area. The New York region office was developed to investigate the performance of Toyota, Lexus and Scion vehicles in cold weather climates, with an emphasis on corrosion issues. The new San Francisco office will focus on hybrid vehicle systems and durability, capitalizing on the high concentration of these vehicles in the California market.

Toyota is currently evaluating opening additional offices in Jacksonville, FL to focus on heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) and drivability; Houston, TX to concentrate on trucks and chassis components; and Denver, CO to study high altitude performance and SUV models. Offices in Toronto and Calgary will focus on extreme seasonal temperature changes and high road salt usage, as well as unique vehicle operating conditions.

"Everyone at Toyota is working aggressively to understand what our customers are experiencing and to respond quickly to their needs by enhancing our information gathering capabilities," said Dino Triantafyllos, Vice President, Quality Division, Toyota Motor Engineering and Manufacturing (TEMA). "The expansion of our Product Quality Field Offices initiative is one example of the significant changes we are making across our North American operations to help ensure that we are a quality-focused and responsive organization."

Product Quality Field Offices will also provide technical support to dealership service personnel and Regional Field Staff; and "specialized response" capabilities for Toyota's Swift Market Analysis Response Teams (SMART), which play a key role in Toyota's rapid-response investigations into customer reports of unintended acceleration.

The expansion of the Product Quality Field Office program is the latest milestone in Toyota's North American efforts to implement President Akio Toyoda's six-point action plan to improve global quality. The action plan includes a top-to-bottom review of Toyota's quality assurance processes in all aspects of its global operations including design, manufacturing and after-market support