Shanghai. The Volvo Plant.
To be honest, I came here expecting to see the "magic" of the auto industry - sparks flying, noise, and the hustle of thousands of workers. What I found instead was… silence.
It didn’t feel like a factory; it felt like an operating room or a Google data center. Absolute cleanliness and a ballet of robots where every movement is calibrated to a tee.
At some point, it clicked for me: Lean principles this plant runs on aren’t just about cars. There’s a blueprint here that maps directly onto EdTech
Here are three takeaways I’m bringing home from Shanghai:
The Right to Pull the "Emergency Cord" (Jidoka) On the assembly line, any worker can stop the production line if they spot a defect. A flaw is never passed to the next stage. Never. In education, it’s usually the opposite: "Didn't quite get loops? That’s okay, let’s move on. You’ll figure it out when we get to arrays." This is a fatal mistake—passing misunderstandings to the next levels where it eventually snowballs into a catastrophe.
The Lesson: Don’t build on a foundation that hasn’t set yet. It’s better to spend 1-2 extra lessons on a topic now than to lose the student entirely later.Just-in-Time (JIT) The assembly line receives exactly as many parts as it needs at that exact moment. There are no warehouses overflowing with spares "just in case."
Schools often front-load kids with theory "for the future." We explain functions before a student has copy-pasted the same code twenty times in a row and got tired (or needed to fix a bug in all of those 20 places spread across the project).
The Lesson: Pain and necessity must come first. "Hitsuyōna mono o, hitsuyōna toki ni, hitsuyōna dake" (The right thing, at the right time, in the right amount).Standardization Over Talent Volvo can replicate this factory in Brazil and turn out the same car. Everything is codified in "Standardized Work" charts.
Education, however, often relies on "rockstar” teachers. But when a charismatic lecturer leaves, the group falls apart. That doesn’t scale. The system must be stronger than the individual.
The Lesson: Educational quality shouldn't rely solely on the teacher’s personality. The methodology, the lesson script, and the learning track must ensure a predictable result with any qualified educator.
I’m leaving the plant with mixed emotions. On one hand, I’m in awe of the technology. On the other, I realize just how much we still need to "fine-tune" in our own processes.
I think it’s time to re-read Taiichi Ohno.