Developing Economies as Toyota Production Systems: Why the Analogy Makes Sense, How It Can Inform Industrial Policy

This presentation discusses developing economies in Latin America as compared to the Toyota Production System (TPS), an integrated socio-technical system, developed by Toyota, that comprises its management philosophy and practices. A comparison of INTA in Argentina and elsewhere is given. The author finds that the current production design and set up are provisional, but can be incrementally improved by benchmarking, error detection and correction. This presentation was presented at the Latin America/Caribbean and Asia/Pacific Economics and Business Association (LAEBA)'s 2nd Annual Meeting held in Buenos Aires, Argentina on November 28th-29th, 2005.