[judk]

Toyota Way was published as a management buzzword in 2001, but its core "kaizen" long predates ToC. (But is credited to Deming bringing the idea to Japan)

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen

Also, ToC and that horribly written "novel" _The Goal_ is the most oversold management buzzword ever. It is super famous because it was the first "agile" fad to get buzz in the modern era of mass communication.

[1stop]

ToC is a pretty influential piece in the realm of systems thinking, not sure you can dismiss it as just buzzwords given it's obvious application across multiple industries (despite what you think of The Goal).

Kaizen is just a word. It's (literally) like saying "improvement" long predates ToC... well of course, but it has no context.

[randomflavor]

Very cool - thank you. The method of thought I agree is definitely more than buzzwords. Problem is movements that use it and have no idea what improvement actually looks like. These lean movements happening now are ridic.