Is Toyota really following the lean manufacturing as we understand it?
I got an interesting news item delivered to my inbox on lean manufacturing recently. There were some interesting insights to Toyota and its philosophy and its operations. Among them there was some information which surprised me.
In this article it said “During full-production periods, when the plant is running 24-7, employees work incredible amounts of overtime — and during slow times, they all know they will still get their paychecks” I am very happy the way Toyota treats its employees and specially the security they have when it comes to their jobs. But I am little surprised to see the variation in production. This article sounds like Toyota is going through very high level of variations. But in the lean concept level production or Heijunka is a key initiative. So this makes me as a reader to think and question the way Toyota actually operate.
On the other hand it was very interesting to note the comment on employee activities in slow times. In this article it says “Hoseus said during slow times, all employees work on becoming more efficient, brainstorming ways to out-do their competition (they’ll bring in competitors cars and tear them apart, looking for ways to improve their own vehicles), and all become actively involved in seeking ways to save the company money”
Kaizen is a corner stone of lean. So finding ways and means of improvement is very important. But I am little surprised to see Toyota bringing competitors cars in and study them to learn from them. Learning new ways and doing things is fine. But I am not sure whether Toyotas competition will enjoy this.
But on the other hand I am very interested in the way Toyota works with community to find the most important resource for any lean manufacturer, the human resource. And the skills they are looking for are very interesting. “Finding employees who fit into Toyota’s mindset has been a problem, Hoseus said, and its nonprofit organization was developed to overcome those problems by working with the community and educators to train people to be the kind of employees Toyota wants: flexible people with a teamwork attitude and problem-solving skills”
I am a firm believer of lean manufacturing. Toyota may be the pioneers of lean, but lean concepts are the driving force behind it. When it comes to lean manufacturing Toyota can be considered as a very important and experienced lean implementation. In other words it is very important to differentiate lean manufacturing with Toyota production system (TPS). TPS is the way lean is practiced in Toyota. It satisfies the requirements of Toyota not your organizations needs. So it is important to take lessons from pioneers like Toyota but also you need to remember lean is not 100% equal to TPS.
You can read this article by clicking here:
In this article it said “During full-production periods, when the plant is running 24-7, employees work incredible amounts of overtime — and during slow times, they all know they will still get their paychecks” I am very happy the way Toyota treats its employees and specially the security they have when it comes to their jobs. But I am little surprised to see the variation in production. This article sounds like Toyota is going through very high level of variations. But in the lean concept level production or Heijunka is a key initiative. So this makes me as a reader to think and question the way Toyota actually operate.
On the other hand it was very interesting to note the comment on employee activities in slow times. In this article it says “Hoseus said during slow times, all employees work on becoming more efficient, brainstorming ways to out-do their competition (they’ll bring in competitors cars and tear them apart, looking for ways to improve their own vehicles), and all become actively involved in seeking ways to save the company money”
Kaizen is a corner stone of lean. So finding ways and means of improvement is very important. But I am little surprised to see Toyota bringing competitors cars in and study them to learn from them. Learning new ways and doing things is fine. But I am not sure whether Toyotas competition will enjoy this.
But on the other hand I am very interested in the way Toyota works with community to find the most important resource for any lean manufacturer, the human resource. And the skills they are looking for are very interesting. “Finding employees who fit into Toyota’s mindset has been a problem, Hoseus said, and its nonprofit organization was developed to overcome those problems by working with the community and educators to train people to be the kind of employees Toyota wants: flexible people with a teamwork attitude and problem-solving skills”
I am a firm believer of lean manufacturing. Toyota may be the pioneers of lean, but lean concepts are the driving force behind it. When it comes to lean manufacturing Toyota can be considered as a very important and experienced lean implementation. In other words it is very important to differentiate lean manufacturing with Toyota production system (TPS). TPS is the way lean is practiced in Toyota. It satisfies the requirements of Toyota not your organizations needs. So it is important to take lessons from pioneers like Toyota but also you need to remember lean is not 100% equal to TPS.
You can read this article by clicking here:
1 comments:
We had an interview with professor Monden who is the author of Toyota Production System. He lives in Tokyo where I live now. He currently is a professor of Mejiro University still working on Toyota Production System.
Please take a look at this interview.
http://www.lean-manufacturing-japan.com/interviews/toyota_production_system.html
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