You want to learn Toyota quality system?

During I was in Delphi, many engineers gave me similar questions.

How can I understand Toyota quality system?

Toyota motor company is one of the world largest automakers. Toyota became important customer for US auto suppliers. Therefore, it is also important to understand Toyota's quality system for them.
Many engineers were told to read books and understand Toyota quality system by managing people. But once they began to study Toyota quality system, they face problems.

As far as I have experienced, American people think very logically compared to Japanese people. Maybe if they study something from Japanese companies, they would feel confused because of lack of logics.

Once they start to learn quality system of Toyota,they find a lot of amazing practices and great results. But since there are few logics, American engineers have a lot of questions, and they will feel uncomfortable since they could not get answerd to their qestions.

I recommended them to study Deming first, before studying Toyota.
Maybe you will find logics from Deming's books, then after that, you can see practices from Toyota.

Mr.William Edwards Deming was American consultant, and has huge influence to Japanese especially to manufacturing companies.
Because Deming was American jentleman, it would be easier to understand for American engineers. And, after they study Deming, it would be easier to understand Toyota because many of Toyota's quality managements are practices of Deming. And I think they will find many answers from Deming's books to the questions appeared when studying Toyota's quality system.