Lean Manufacturing and the Toyota Production System Success and Failure
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Free Download - Just In Time, or Just In Case By Jack Greene |
Lean Manufacturing and the Toyota Production System, Success and Failure
The Toyota Production System has been a roaring success at Toyota, but much less effective in other locations.
I am not an expert on the Lean system, The Toyota Production System or TPS. But I have read a bit, primarily to compare it to classical Industrial Engineering concepts that I do know and have practiced so long.
Just to start the lesson, and to achieve the right, humble, attitude about the breadth of TPS, pull up http://www.superfactory.com/document-archive/newsletter-articles/171-toyota-kyushu-lean-manufacturing.html. “Toyota Kyushu - The Manufacturing Ballet” written by Kevin Meyer of Superfactory.
The following well several qualified sources are familiar with the masters, Mr. Taiichi Ohno the head of Toyota Manufacturing and Shigeo Shingo, the industrial engineering genius behind the Toyota Production System. These sources explore some significant differences between TPS at Toyota, and recent less successful application elsewhere.
1. Lilly Software Associates, Inc.
Lean Manufacturing is not a specific technique or a piece of software. Lean is, above all else, an attitude and a focus on eliminating waste, that is, anything that does not contribute directly to getting product out the door.
2. Art Smalley, President, Art of Lean, Inc.
Real TPS is not just about flow or pull production or cellular manufacturing or any of the other catchy phrases or tools you may frequently hear. For over fifty years TPS in Toyota has been primarily concerned with making a profit, and satisfying the customer with the highest possible quality at the lowest cost in the shortest lead-time, while developing the talents and skills of its workforce through rigorous improvement routines and problem solving disciplines. In every piece of TPS literature from Toyota, this stated aim is mixed in with the twin production principles of Just in Time (make and deliver the right part, in the right amount, at the right time), and Jidoka (build in quality at the process), as well as the notion of continuous improvement by standardization and elimination of waste in all operations to improve quality, cost, productivity, lead-time, safety, morale and other metrics as needed. This clear objective has not substantially changed since the first internal TPS training manual was drafted over thirty years ago.
Despite this consistent message on the part of Toyota, the lines have become crossed in many Lean plants. In the U.S., becoming Lean appears to have gone down a path of implementing tools such as one piece flow, value stream mapping, standardized work, or kaizen events, but results have not always followed. Toyota, by way of contrast, has stayed focused on its principles and a disciplined emphasis on process improvement to obtain results such as making a `profit, reducing lead-time, improving productivity, achieving built in quality, as well as respecting human dignity of employees etc. The difference may sound trivial, but it is actually significant. In fact, it is likely the main reason why Toyota has continued to see success on so many dimensions, where others struggle.
The basic, critical assumption behind every aspect of TPS is to continuously reduce cost. Inventory, scrap and rework, extra people and resources, downtime, etc all cost money - and all of these must be eliminated or minimized. In other words, waste elimination has a specific purpose, and it not just seven neat categories to be quoted during work or training.
Although less prestigious than the TPS specialists, development of work team supervisors in Toyota is considered an equally, if not more important, topic merely because there are tens of thousands of these individuals. Specifically, it is these manufacturing leaders that are the main focus of training efforts in Toyota since they lead the daily work areas, and they directly and dramatically affect quality, cost, productivity, safety, and morale of the team environment. In most companies implementing Lean the reverse set of priorities is true. Emphasis is put on developing the specialist, while the supervisor skill level is expected to somehow develop over time on its own.
Three specific courses known as Job Instruction, Job Relations, and Job Methods were used to provide supervisors with skills needed to develop their teams and solve problems in the work area they managed. To a very large degree, these programs are still the back bone of the supervisor development program in Toyota, and a big part of why the company is so successful.
The only proper approach to implementing TPS is to reflect long and hard on Mr. Taiichi Ohno's original advice. Ask what the greatest point of need for improvement is and start from there.
3. Bill Waddell, CPIM
Factory people know that lean is primarily about cutting cycle times on factory floors, reducing inventories and floor space, cutting costs and improving quality.
4. Bob Emiliani, The Center for Lean Business Management
Lean community leaders have recently made two huge changes in how they present Lean. The first change is Lean as a management system rather than Lean manufacturing. Second, they are finally taking note of the long-established Respect for People principle. Why now? In part because there have been so few successful Lean transformations over the last 20 years. Another reason is that most other aspects of the Lean management system have been studied in detail, so this is the next territory to explore. This batch-and-queue non-integrative approach has severely increased the lead-time needed to properly educate people about Lean management particularly the Respect for People principle.
The Respect for People principle is one of two pillars of The Toyota Way; the other is Continuous Improvement. The Respect for People principle has existed for several decades within Toyotas management system, but has been almost entirely ignored by outsiders. In addition, this principle extends back to the 1900s and was recognized as essential by the creators of the Scientific Management system of which Lean management is its direct descendent in tandem with Fords flow production system. In the old days, the Respect for People principle was referred to more narrowly as Cooperation, principally between management and labor.
As many people have found out first-hand, practicing only the Continuous Improvement principle (called Betterment in the old days ) leads to many problems. Foremost among them is managements desire to improve efficiency and productivity usually results in layoffs, which slows down or halts improvement efforts. Root cause analyses of the problems that arise when only the Continuous Improvement principle is practiced indicates a countermeasure that today we call the Respect for People principle. This point is worth repeating: Respect for People (Cooperation) is the primary countermeasure for bungled continuous improvement (Betterment) efforts. That’s why it is a Toyota Way principle.
Indeed, the failure of the Scientific Management system to firmly establish itself in industry 60-100 years ago was correctly attributed to managements inability to establish long-term patterns of cooperative and respectful behavior with labor, in addition to other leadership shortcomings. The same thing is happening today. Lean management is struggling to replace conventional management on a narrow basis, let alone across wide swaths of manufacturing and service industries. It should be no surprise that history is repeating itself.
The Respect for People principle is deceptive in that it seems very easy to understand and apply, but it is not. Most mid- and senior-level managers think they know what Respect for People means, but it is clear from leadership behaviors, common business performance metrics, company policies, managements decisions, and sometimes even corporate strategy, that they do not.
Top managers typically possess superficial, casual definitions of Respect for People such as fairness, civility, or listening. And they think they do these things quite well. Further, they think understanding the meaning of Respect for People is trivial for well-educated persons in high positions. This is a severe misjudgment. Far from being trivial, it is of great importance to the long-term survival and prosperity of a business to understand what Respect for People really means.
Toyota does not use one simple, discrete definition to express the Respect for People principle, whose context is better represented by the phrase Respect for Stakeholders. Rather, it is a more elaborate multi-layered description that includes historical words from former Toyota executives to better comprehend its meaning. Toyotas top-level representation of the Respect for People principle consists of two parts: Respect and Teamwork, and is as follows:
RESPECT: We respect others, make every effort to understand each other, take responsibility and do our best to build mutual trust.
TEAMWORK: We stimulate personal and professional growth, share the opportunities of development and maximize individual and team performance.
These words do not constitute the entire definition. A significant amount of detail is missing and can be found only in the The Toyota Way 2001 document, which is not publicly available. But dont fall into the trap of hoping to obtain a copy of the document. Instead, please start to think about what Respect for People means in the context of stakeholders, corporate policies, metrics, business processes, leadership behaviors, corporate strategy, etc.
While the Toyota Way 2001 document does much to reduce variation in individual perceptions of what the equally important Continuous Improvement and Respect for People principles mean, words printed on paper are never sufficient. The Respect for People principle is comprehended only through daily thinking and practice on-the-job. It requires years of thought and practice to understand it well, and can never be completely comprehended.
5. Another fine article by Bob Emiliani is “Dark Days for Lean Management” found at
http://www.superfactory.com/articles/featured/2008/0806-emiliani-dark-days.html. Bob introduces it by saying “When do top executives adopt Lean management? Usually, it’s when times are tough. Why do top executives adopt Lean management? To reduce costs, improve profitability, and increase the stock price. This reasoning is totally incorrect and contributes to the many failed Lean transformations that we have witnessed over the last 30 years. So when should management adopt Lean management and what is the right reason for doing so?”
My thanks to these fine sources.
Jack Greene, Jackson Productivity Research Inc.
Lean Manufacturing and the Toyota Production System Success and Failure - To learn more about this author, visit Jack Greene's Website.
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