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What Exactly Is AB Control at Toyota?

Christoph Roser March 31, 2026

In lean, you may have heard the term AB control. This is often used at Toyota, but is also often confused in the West, especially with the terms one-piece flow and lot size one. AB control is related, but different. In fact, it is closer to a pull production than to lot size one and one-piece flow. But all three help enable a smooth flow of the product toward the customer without overproduction. Let’s first have a look at the other terms:

The Lean Home Kitchen

Christoph Roser March 24, 2026

In my last post I talked about lean in the professional kitchen, especially the impact of Auguste Escoffier on modern kitchen management. In this post I will look at the history of the home kitchen, where lean also made some significant changes that you still can see today (albeit some other improvements have been lost). And, one interesting fact for this post: It was all women who made these improvements!

The Lean Commercial Kitchen

Christoph Roser March 17, 2026

In this post I would like to go culinary, and look a bit at the history of professional restaurant kitchens and how lean the top restaurants of the world are nowadays. The key influence here is Auguste Escoffier, who created the modern French kitchen.

The Biggest Problem You Can Have Is No Problem!

Christoph Roser March 10, 2026

As a manager, don’t you just sometimes wish all problems will go away? Wouldn’t it be nice if everybody in the company agreed with you? Having been a production manager myself, I agree that indeed, yes, that would be nice. At the same time, this would be one of the most dangerous situations your company could be in. Simply said, a company will always have problems and disagreements; that is just the nature of companies. Continuous improvement is solving these problems, resolving the disagreements, and tapping the potential that your company has. Not having any problems merely means that you DON’T KNOW these problems, and a lack of disagreements is merely PEOPLE NOT TELLING YOU about problems. And those are the biggest problems you can have in your company…

The Evolution of Strategic Management—Hoshin Kanri

Christoph Roser March 3, 2026

In this last post on the evolution of strategic management, I will talk about Hoshin Kanri. For me, it is the big thing—albeit I may be influenced by being an Ex-Toyota employee, and, while Hoshin Kanri was not invented by Toyota, it was certainly made popular by it and its lean manufacturing. Hence, it is also the last post in this series, even though timewise it came before the balanced scorecard, which also had Hoshin Kanri as an inspiration.

The Evolution of Strategic Management—Balanced Scorecard

Christoph Roser February 24, 2026

In this fifth post on the evolution of strategic management, we will be looking at the Balanced Scorecard. Like Objectives and Key Results, it is an evolution of Management by Objectives (MBO). It is also influenced by Hoshin Kanri. In terms of popularity, it is slowly on the decline, albeit still quite popular.

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