Major Issue: Toyota Motor Manufacturing, USA (TMM) is deviating from the standard jidoka assembly line principle in an attempt to avoid expenses incurred in stopping the production line for quality defects of the seats. This deviation contributed to the failure to identify the root cause of the problem, which led to a decrease in the number of trips on the line and an excess of defective cars in the overflow lot over multiple days. If this problem is not resolved quickly, you will continue to incur an increasing amount of waste and customer value will be threatened. Analysis: Friesen is really struggling to find a way to "have his cake and eat it too." Friesen is passionate about TPS ways to achieve lean manufacturing by focusing on reducing costs by completely eliminating waste. He knows that just in time (JIT) manufacturing is implemented to ensure that plants produce only what is needed, only as much as is needed, and only when it is needed. He has been carefully trained in the principles of jidoka, understanding processes are put in place to make any production problems immediately apparent through visual deviations from normal conditions. It also includes the value of the andon pull and that states that the andon card is not replaced until the problem is resolved, often resulting in a shutdown of the line. However, he believed that the problem was different and therefore an alternative process was acceptable. He believed that it was possible to deviate from some of the fundamental principles of jidoda by solving the quality problem off the production line and within the quality control (QC) team. He believed this would allow him to save money by not having idle machines. Even after all the alarming red flags in front of him that point to… middle of the paper… the standard process, Friesen is attempting to solve the problem by skipping the first three core levels of key principles and jumping to the fourth level of foundation , troubleshooting. While he is implementing troubleshooting by seeing for himself, skipping the first three levels is limiting his ability to actually get to the root cause of the problem and fix it in the long term. Any short-term gains made by not solving the problem at hand will not outweigh the long-term gains that can be made by adhering to proven TPS philosophies. Friesen must immediately cease the current deviation from standards and return to the proven jidoka and andon processes, which include implementing the "five whys" (see example, Appendix B), to truly uncover the root cause of seat defects and find a long-term solution.