Resumen:
After Taylor and Ford's approaches, the Japanese industry, with its main leading exponent Toyota, showed that it is possible to have a greater level of flexibility and productivity through its principles of "just in time, versatility of labor, any inventory, continuous flow production and continuous improvement. Diversity of concepts, proposals and even philosophies have arisen from the original ideas of Taiichi Ohno and his associates, however, when they are going to be implemented in a organization its key essence is lost. The purpose of this paper, result of a review of the literature on continuous improvement systems, is to show how different approaches developed around the Toyota Production System interact. At the same time to emphasize in their common and decisive points to consider in its implementation. For this task, it has to be turned to original concepts of the leading authors such as Taiichi Ohno, Masaaki Imai, Hiroyuki Hirano, Shigeo Shingo, James Womack and Daniel Jones. All of them known such as gurus in the field of continuous improvement. Thus, this article contributes to a holistic understanding on continuous improvement systems implementation. As a conclusion, besides the wasting considered the focus of attention of different approaches, there is also a general interest in engaging staff in improvement programs through the change of habits, permanent staff training in the improvement fundamentals and techniques, leaving behind the vicious circle that links continuous improvement with a condition of lacking work, and finally motivate a change of mind, create a climate of trust before starting to implement a continuous improvement program. In this sense, the management processes and the learning of employees working in harmony are two aspects that lead an organization to improve in both: productivity as competitiveness.
