For anybody that cares, much of this process has its origins in Taiichi Ohno's work in the '70s. His original "Toyota Production System" book of 1978, which is

For anybody that cares, much of this process has its origins in Taiichi Ohno's work in the '70s. His original "Toyota Production System" book of 1978, which is still in print, is short, accessible, and enormously enlightening. Likewise, a comparative study of why the Toyota system works in comparison with other manufacturing approaches is the 2nd edition of Womack's "Machine that Changed the World". Also, other books by Shingo, Imai, Deming et al. have lots of good information.