Another important operational principle of TPS was Jidoka (self-regulation), which focused on empowerment of workers. The company believed that people were an important element of the TPS and that without their support the system would not work efficiently. To ensure smooth and quality production, Toyota encouraged its workers to play an active role in quality control and implement their ideas and opinions in production processes. Workers were given the responsibility of ensuring the quality of their own work and were instructed not to pass on poor quality to the next stage. Through visible control, any employee at any level of the hierarchy had a right to make improvements in processes or eliminate any waste that they identified.