one of the key concepts that Ohno introduced is the idea of “flow.” That is, production should flow swiftly and calmly throughout the process, and, he said, one of management’s key tasks is to identify and remove impediments to that flow. Everything that stands in the way is waste. Ohno gives waste a moral, as well as a business, value in his classic book, The Toyota Production System: It is not an exaggeration that in a low-growth period such waste is a crime against society more than a business loss. Eliminating waste must be a business’s first objective.
