In the early 1950s, on a cramped shop floor in Japan, a young engineer named Taiichi Ohno walked past a supermarket and found his revelation.

Instead of shelves stacked weeks ahead, items were restocked only when a customer took one.

He thought: Why should cars be built any differently?

Back at Toyota, the team began stripping back inventory, limiting pieces to what the next step needed. No more, no less. They introduced the kanban signal, and the principle of just-in-time (JIT) production was born.

Instead of machines running flat-out, they'd wait (silently) for the signal, start only what the customer needed now.

And when a defect appeared, they didn't bury it under workarounds. They stopped the line. They fixed the root cause right there. That became the other pillar: jidoka. Automation with a human touch.

What seemed counterintuitive (producing less to sell more) became Toyota's advantage. Fewer parts. Less waste. Faster flow.

The lean engine revved stronger than the mass-production giants.

Today, Lean Manufacturing is the gold standard. Nearly 70% of all factories have adopted lean methods. 70% to 90% of Fortune 500 companies use some form of lean principles. It moved beyond the factory floor into healthcare, software (Lean Startup), and service industries. When done right, lean initiatives yield an average 200% ROI within 12 to 18 months.

And now, the same logic is pulsing through GTM teams: it's no longer about adding more tools, more segments, more sequences. It's about removing what slows you down so you can move faster, clearer, with purpose.

Captions are auto generated