Training within Industry began life in the United States in the years 1940 to 1945 when the United States Department of War realised that there were problems with war-related industries whose personnel were being drafted into the services at exactly the same time that the War Department was issuing orders for more materials. It became apparent that a shortage of trained and skilled personnel at precisely the point they were most needed would create a shortfall, and that only improved methods of job training could ameliorate it.

There were four basic programmes which were developed by experts borrowed from private industry, and between them they developed the Five Needs of a Supervisor which were Knowledge of the Work, Knowledge of Responsibility, Skill in Instructing, Skill in Improving Methods, and Skill in Leading.

They also produced the set of four training programmes lasting ten hours each that covered Job Instruction (JI) which taught supervisors how to train new workers to work faster. Job Methods (JM) involved teaching workers how to evaluate their jobs and suggest to management how improvements could be made. Job Relations (JR) taught supervisors how to handle workers fairly and effectively and emphasised that people have to be treated as individuals, which, of course, they are. Programme Development (PD) taught trainers how to assist the line organisation to solve any production problems through training.

Additional programmes were also started and included Job Safety, which the US decide not to use because it maintained that safety was an integral part of every job, but which was developed by Canada. The UK developed its' own JS programme, and this was circulated in Japan as early as 1948. Another programme was Problem Solving (PS) which was released by the TWI Foundation in 1946, but appeared as a much more developed programme in 1955 which was released by TWI Inc. Another programme was Discussion Leading (DL) and a variant of this programme was brought out by TWI Foundation which they called Conference Leading.

As of 1959 TWI was in use in 67 countries, especially in Japan where it was enthusiastically received and inspired the concept of kaizen which means "improvement" in business and involves everyone in the company from the CEO down to the assembly line workers, on the basis that everyone, even the CEO, can improve. In particular, the Toyota company adopted kaizen and combined it with the Lean or Just In Time principles developed by Taiichi Ohno who is considered to be the "father" of the Toyota production system. Ohno, who was actually born in China, also developed the "Seven Wastes" principle which is as follows:

1. Delay, waiting, or time spent in a queue, with no value being added

2. Producing more than you need

3. Over processing or undertaking non-value-added activity

4. Transportation

5. Unnecessary movement or motion

6. Inventory

7. Defects in the Product.

All of which, as most people would agree, are time consuming and waste money, or at the very least add to overheads. Even transportation, which is a necessity in many instances, may not be necessary all the time. For example, if you can find materials suppliers near to your factory, rather than importing them from abroad, you will save on transportation costs. Today, we call that "thinking outside the box".

Today, too, TWI is in use in many industries and the purpose is to train line managers and middle managers to the level that they are not just the "boss" but have exceptional leadership skills and are able to get the best out of everyone in their team, and more importantly to have them work as a team rather than a group of individuals.

This means learning interpersonal skills which some people may have intuitively, but probably the majority do not. It means learning routines and habits, and not just any habits, but habits which are the right habits, and which become ingrained so that they just happen. In fact, in most instances if habits do not change the results will not change either. They need no thought when they become habits, but in order for them to do so they have to be learned in the first instance.