Japanese manufacturing terms: focus on usage, not kanji!

[Characters for Day, Moon, Fire, Water, Sheep, and Horse evolving over millennia, as posted by Ida Speyer on the Hutong School site]

Searching for deep meaning in Kanji within technical terms in the Toyota Production System is futile. Words evolve over time, and their current meaning is found in how people use them, not in the origins of their components.