Purpose – To provide a methodology for determining how and when a management fad has become an established paradigm. Design/methodology/approach – The penticulation approach compares the outputs from the five separate research sources of horizontal surveys, experiential rules‐of‐thumb,...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the manifold linkages connecting the Toyota Production System (TPS) back to the Gilbreths and others, and to determine how these have contributed to enterprise‐wide best practice. Industrial engineering (IE) theory rapidly subsumed method...