andons.) The vast majority of improvements come from employees, and the vast majority of those changes are small: a one-foot shift in the location of a parts bin, for instance. But they add up. It's estimated that each year Toyota implements around a thousand tiny fixes in each of its assembly lines, about a million tiny fixes overall. Toyota, moving in these fitful baby steps, is like a giant, car-making Clarissa. The small changes are like tiny wraps of myelin, helping its circuitry run a fraction faster, smoother, and more accurately. The sign over the door of Toyota's Georgetown, Kentucky,
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