Overview – Why It Matters
In Step 6 we verified whether our countermeasures worked — logic met reality, and results confirmed learning.
Step 7 asks the next, harder question: Can those results endure?
This phase transforms improvement from an event into a habit. It is where leadership, follow-through, and disciplined confirmation turn temporary success into lasting stability.
The Human Side – Angel Ohtsuki’s Lesson
I learned the true meaning of this step from Tetsuo “Angel” Ohtsuki, a 60-year-old kōchō (foreman) at Toyota’s Kamigo Engine Plant.
He had joined Toyota right after middle school in the early 1950s and spent more than four decades mastering every job from manual assembly to precision machining.
While executives like Ohno, Suzumura, and Mamiya shaped the philosophy of the Toyota Production System, it was men like Angel who brought it to life on the shop floor.
Angel could inherit an underperforming team and, within a year, have the same people producing above standard — and proud of it.
He was a “mission-first, people-always” leader, completely fluent in TWI, standardized work, and kaizen.
When I once asked him why his areas always performed so well, he smiled and said simply,
“I follow up.”
He meant it literally.
Angel followed up on everything — work orders, quality concerns, training promises, maintenance requests.
He carried a small red notebook filled with names, dates, and check points, and nothing left those pages until it was done.
That quiet persistence — not slogans or tools — was the real power behind Toyota’s stability.
A Simple Problem – A Profound Lesson
One day a machining center went down for a hydraulic low-pressure fault.
The team repaired the leak and rerouted a hose to prevent recurrence — a solid fix, or so it seemed.
But Angel didn’t stop there.
He asked for a floating bob in the hydraulic tank so operators could instantly see fluid level.
Later he requested a sight window on the side, color-coded for normal, caution, and low.
Next came a sensor that triggered an early warning before pressure dropped.
Eventually the signal was tied into a remote monitoring system, allowing all tanks to be checked in real time and serviced as needed rather than by a fixed-interval PM.
That is what real follow-up looks like — a steady progression from reaction to prevention, from hidden condition to visible control.
Angel trained production people to understand their equipment deeply: to notice cutting-tool wear, clamp alignment, hydraulic temperature, and motor sound.
He built thinking people who owned their machines, not just operated them.
This episode illustrates Toyota’s three inseparable dimensions:
- Technical – rigorous standards and engineering logic.
- Method – standardized work, visual control, and routine checking.
- Human – leaders like Ohtsuki who make standards live through follow-up, teaching, and example.
Most companies try to copy the methods; few grasp the technical depth; almost none replicate the human system that sustains both.
The Technical Backbone
Behind Angel’s behavior stood a formidable structure of standards:
- TMS (Toyota Manufacturing Standards) and TMR (Toyota Manufacturing Regulations) at the corporate level
- MTS (Machine Tool Standards) for engine-plant processes
- Project Standards & Specifications for every new line or overseas facility
- The familiar Work Standards, Job Instruction Sheets, and Standardized Work Charts on the shop floor tied to takt time
Every improvement had to ripple through that network — drawings, parts lists, lubrication diagrams, training, maintenance plans.
Angel ensured each link was updated, verified, and visible.
He believed that making problems visible was the ultimate form of respect for people:
“If we can see it, we can solve it.”
Why This Step Matters
Step 7 is the moment when improvement becomes culture.
It closes the technical loop through documentation and verification, and the human loop through follow-up and teaching.
It reminds us that a countermeasure is only as good as the discipline that sustains it.
At Kamigo, every standard was a living promise — We checked, we learned, and we won’t forget.
That is the spirit of Tetsuo Ohtsuki and the essence of Follow Up and Standardize.
If Step 6 proved learning, Step 7 ensures we never lose it — the quiet leadership that keeps progress alive.