Yet many companies focus on the mechanisms of implementation--one-piece flow, pull production, takt time, standard work, kanban--without linking those mechanisms back to the pillars that hold up the entire system. JIT is fairly well understood, but jidoka is key to making the entire system stick. A lot of failed implementations can be traced back to not building this second pillar.

Jidoka is one of the main pillars of the TPS. The TPS is presented as a house with two pillars. One pillar represents just-in-time (JIT), and the other pillar the concept of Jidoka. Take away any of the pillars holding up the roof, and the entire system will collapse. Take out quality, and there is no TPS. Jidoka is a principle of building quality for customers--not inspecting quality. Building quality mean making it right the first time. If you are making defective products or using unacceptable quality standards and filtering these defects out through an inspection system, there is no building quality--and no Jidoka. You are just catching the mistakes made in the manufacturing process. This cost a lot of money and resources and puts the business at risk.