Poka-Yoke

The term Poka-Yoke is a japanese term that means fail-safing or mistake-proofing.

This term is any mechanism in Lean Manifacturing process that helps an equipment operator to avoid mistakes.

This concept was formalized by Shingeo Shingo in 1960, as a part of the Toyota Production System and it was described as fool-proofing.

Later, the fool-proofing concept was changed to mistake-proofing by the complain of a worker.

An exmaple of a Poka-Yoke is the car key, which you can't remove from the switch until the transmission is on Park position.

Another example are the usb's memories, which have only one mode to connect to the computer.