Jidoka – Automation with a human touch

Jidoka is one of the main tools of lean. In fact it is treated as one of the main pillars of lean manufacturing. Although Jidoka is very important tool, as most of lean tools it stays simple both to understand and practice.

Jidoka is often explained as “Automation with a human touch”. In other words this means automation with some degree of human involvement. When your machinery runs normally and processes are being followed properly, there is nothing you should worry about. But if your processes and machinery are not producing expected results, and if it continues to run, you have a problem in your hand. You will end up with tons of faulty goods.

This is where the concept of Jidoka comes to play. If there is something wrong in your operation, Jidoka suggests you to stop immediately and then fix the problem before start running your process gain. This will ensure you remove the problem from the process so you will not be making piles of faulty items.

Roots of Jidoka traces back to the early automated loom developments. When the looms were automated there was a major problem. When the yarn is broken, entire length of the woven fabric will have a defect. This is very costly. So you have to identify the problem (broken yarn) immediately and stop the loom to fix the problem to avoid this issue. This is where error detection techniques and automatic stopping devices were introduced. When you have a thread broken, there will be a mechanism to identify the error, and it will automatically stop the machine. This will alert the operator. He will come to the machine, fix the problem and then re start the machine. Although today there are new technologies is available to detect problems easily still the same old concept is followed. You identify the problem immediately; you stop the process and fix it.

Later concept of Jidoka was applied on the processes like assembly lines. When an operator detects an error, they will try solving it themselves. If they cannot correct it themselves, they will call their immediate boss, line supervisor for an example. If the supervisor can solve the issue within an allocated limit of time, line will not be stopped. If the supervisor cannot complete the job within the given amount of time, line will be stopped. Error will be fixed and the line will be re started.

Jidoka is often used with Poka Yoke and Visual control concepts. Visual indicators are used to highlight the errors and Pokayoke is practiced to avoid the identified problems in future.

Jidoka makes it very hard to hide problems. When you stop the line, you create a crisis. If you have no solution to the problem, you will not be able to continue with manufacturing. So solving problems becomes a must.

Although it is simple enough to understand and implement, for an organization to come to the point of Jidoka implementation it take some change. Implementing Jidoka calls for a complete shift in traditional management mentality. Traditionally, stopping the manufacturing line is treated as a crime, something you should not do at all. People are encouraged to continue the work regardless of the problems which may come through.

So changing the mentality will not be easy. This will be the main problem associated with implementing Jidoka in your organization.

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