Training within Industry: The American Foundations of Lean Manufacturing
Lean Manufacturing has been adapted and perfected by Japanese manufacturers to ensure the highest quality at the lowest cost while engaging people at all levels of the process toward continuous improvement. What most people fail to realize is that the priniciples of lean manufacturing and the Toyota Production System (TPS) specifically, found their origins in the Training within Industry program developed by the United States in the 1940's and 1950's as part of the war production effort. After the war ended, these same priniciples of standardization in job instruction, job methods, and job relations were utilized by Japan to rebuild their industrial infrastructure. Through rigorous discipline in creating and maintaining standards and by adherence to ongoing process improvement to eliminate waste in its various forms, the priniciples yielded phenomenal results. Much of what is taught at Toyota and other lean manufacturing icons is a direct translation from the materials used in the 1940's. This lens will provide you with the history of TWI, with original resources and guidelines in addition to the best on the web related to the resurgence of TWI in American industries of all types.
Picture credit: Hawaii War Records Depository (HWRD) Training Within Industry. First graduates in the territory of the job methods institute held by the training within industry program of the war manpower commission completed their course recently. Standing, is Virgil K. Rowland, TWI official from Wash. D.C., who conducted the course. Seated left to right, H.P. Dahlquist, John Scott, Harold Crawford, Wm. B. Jones, Elroy Fulmer, J.E. Milligan, W.L. Doering, Henry Duvauchelle, (not in the picture is Ralph Beck.)
The TWI Institute
The TWI (Training Within Industry) Institute was formed by the Central New York Technology Development Organization (CNYTDO) to oversee the redeployment of the TWI Program thoughout industry.
Training within Industry Books on Amazon
Lean Manufacturing Videos
Lean manufacturing examples
curated content from YouTube
curated content from YouTube
New Del.icio.us bookmarks
TWI Summit
2008 TWI Summit dates released: May 6-7, 2008
120 lean practitioners, company leadership, training professionals, and association leadership attended the first annual TWI Summit. The Summit made history by being the largest gathering of TWI proponents in more than 60 years! New Link List
Featured TWI Links
- TWI National Archives Page
- TWI at the National Archives -- Special Thanks to Bryan LundHome from SME Green Mountain Chapter 204 in Northern Vermont.
- Superfactory - Training Within Industry (TWI)
- Training within industry and TWI resources, tools, communities, events, books for lean manufacturing excellence and best practices
Wikipedia
The Training Within Industry (TWI) service was created by the United States Department of War, running from 1940 to 1945 within the War Manpower Commission. The purpose was to provide consulting services to war-related industries whose personnel were being conscripted into the US Army at the same time the War Department was issuing orders for additional matériel. It was apparent that the shortage of trained and skilled personnel at precisely the time they were needed most would impose a hardship on those industries, and that only improved methods of job training would address the shortfall [http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/ATO/Admin/WarProgram/charts/WarProgram-20.jpg]. By the end of World War II, over 1.6 million workers in over 16,500 plants had received a certification.
Great Web Resources on Training within Industry
- Training Within Industry
- Forum, tips and explanation of this model for developing supervisor skills, where and how it can be used. Includes links to similar management tools, supply chain models, HR theories and organizational frameworks.
Training within Industry Articles
- TWI Training Within Industry
- "TWI- The Missing Link to Lean and Kaizen" By Robert Wrona
- What and Why TWI?
- Lean Directions: the e-newsletter of lean manufacturing, published by Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Updated monthly, posts articles and news about lean manufacturing.
Original TWI Manuals
Downloads courtesy of SME Green Mountain Chapter 204 in Northern Vermont
TWI Downloads
Many of these downloads are direct links to excellent PDF files
- Why Standard Work is not Standard: TWI Provides an Answer
- Why Standard Work is not Standard: TWI Provides an Answer
- The Root of Lean, TWI: The Origin of Kaizen
- The Root of Lean, TWI: The Origin of Kaizen
New Guestbook
-
Reply
- Bryan Bryan Jul 28, 2008 @ 7:45 am
- Hi Iceman,
Perhaps you will find my TWI Service website useful for your TWI lense. I created the site so anyone can have free access to the public domain materials and gain more insight into the historic transformation in Japan partly due to TWI and the work we did in shaping Lean here in the U.S. over 60 years ago.
http://www.trainingwithinindustry.net
-
Reply
- rose08 rose08 Jul 10, 2008 @ 8:20 pm
- Nice lens. Very inspiring site providing lot of information about the Training within Industry. It's a trade mark! Training is very important to improve the professionalism and skills of the human resources and team working efficiencies. It's a very good example to execute the training in the industry. I have some other examples of organizational skills, please drop by and let me know your comments.
-
Reply
- Prasanth D Prasanth D Apr 30, 2008 @ 6:04 am
- Hi,
It is great to have such good lense about TWI. I have not been using the techniques for long time because of different functional focus. Now there is a need and was seeking some web resources to refresh my self. This lense provided me all what I needed.
Suggest you can generate a lense on TWI and Mcdinaldisation. (That was a concept kept for my own lense! ha!)
by IcemanBaldy
Iceman Baldy is principal of Black Marketing Media, parent company for
Black Webpreneur, the Black Internet Marketing Forum,
and Iceman Baldy.com. He...














