Toyota brings 'kaizen' production philosophy to Japan's ailing farms

[NickOttens]

From Nikkei

What does one of the world’s leading automakers have in common with a farm in the countryside? Quite a bit, as it turns out.

Toyota Motor has brought its successful kaizen philosophy, which focuses on continuous improvements in efficiency, to agriculture. The company launched its Hosaku Keikaku service – meaning a plan for a bountiful harvest – in 2014, and it has spread to 90 farms across the country.

It could be key to helping Japan’s aging farmers in the face of a severe labor shortage.

There are two main parts to the system:

A cloud-based system in which workers collect data about individual fields and rice paddies using smartphones.
Toyota employees coming to farms and identifying practices that are wasteful or inefficient.

Click here to read the rest.