Many people don't understand the DNA
of the Toyota Production System and the core values of the Toyota Way. I have
seen many who think about TPS as a toolkit or lean manufacturing techniques
that have worked with Toyota because Toyota has a different process, a stable
environment, or a less fluctuation in customer demand. Some others believe that
TPS works only with the automotive industry.
Jeff K Liker came out with a
remarkable series of books starting from the Toyota Way: 14 Management
Principles to the Toyota Way to Lean Leadership. He showed us what
is the real TPS based on his 30+ years of experience studying Toyota. It took
him 7 books to explain what TPS is and decode the system. It is a Thinking
Production System. Neither a waste removal tool nor a lean manufacturing
tactic. Jeff also presented very well the leadership model that is behind the
success of the system.
From my several years of experience
in using TPS and leading improvement projects in various industries and
businesses, testing what works and what doesn't, talking with professionals
like Jeff K Liker, reading different business resources and Lean books,
studying the Toyota series books, participating in international conferences
and seminars, writing publications and teaching at the University. I can
confidently say that TPS is not what many do think it is.
So what is TPS?
TPS is a thinking production system: yes the real point is to make people think and people are
the value of the system. One of the students of Taiichi Ohno said “We at Toyota
made a mistake. We should have never called it the Toyota Production System, we
should have called it the Thinking Production System. Because the real point is
to make people think and people are the value of the system." The TPS is
made by people, adapted by people, improved by people, and is being
improved by people everyday and every year. Toyota's employees are making
several improvements to the process everyday and thousands of improvements
every year.
When a company say TPS didn't work
for us, it is a leadership failure. I suspect they have tried to use the tools
in a rigid way. The tools are flexible, adaptable, and implementable in many
different conditions and industries. That's why you have to think about the
tools and use your own mind. Develop your people and motivate them to think and
act.
TPS is a long-term innovation
process: without innovation Toyota would
have never succeeded in anything. The Toyota R&D department has played a
major role in the success of Toyota. The Toyota wiring loom has gone through
several major improvements and developments. Toyota Prius was the first hybrid
vehicle. Minomi is a revolution in the material movement. For those who don't
know Minomi. It is an innovation initiated in Japan focused on eliminating
container completely. One of the Toyota group of companies in Japan called
Central Motors has successfully created a revolution in material flow by a well
designed system to move parts without containers, the system called (Minomi).
The details are in the Toyota Way to Lean Leadership.
TPS is a customizable production
system: the system can't be copied. What
has worked in an environment or specific industry may not work in the other.
Even from a Toyota plant to another, the system can't be copied identically.
You have to think and adapt the tools. And make them tailored to your needs to
suite the current condition. The best example comes from the Menomi system.
When the Toyota Georgetown, Kentucky tried to copy and paste the technique from
the Japanese plant, the process failed. Later, under the leadership of Gary
Convis, the president of Kentucky plant, and because Gary was trained very well
in lean thinking, he led the implementation using the Toyota Way. Again this
leads us to the first point. TPS is a Thinking Production System. The real
point is to make people think and the system won't succeed without leaders
trained on lean thinking and lean culture.
TPS is a productivity improvement
system: it is not only for manufacturing.
TPS gives outstanding results in any area that want to achieve overall
improvement in productivity, quality, safety, and reliability. It works very
well with many different industries and businesses include healthcare,
hospitals, hotels, accommodations, banking, services, construction,...etc. The
problem in the use of word "production" makes many think that the
system is for manufacturing. What about accelerating the check in and check out
process in the hotel? Won't this improve productivity? Improve customer
experience? There are many success stories in non-manufacturing industries
presented in many lean references. We somehow managed to ignore the whole
system aspect of Lean thinking and started calling it "Lean" or
"Lean manufacturing" instead. This tragic reduction in scope allowed
business leaders dismiss lean as a manufacturing thing. As a result,
manufacturing companies believed that lean could be delegated down, and non
manufacturing companies believed that lean didn't apply to them at all.
TPS is the Toyota problem solving kata: yes, Toyota has its own unique way in solving problems and
developing leaders. Toyota has a psychology of process improvement unlike its
other competitor. Kata is a Japanese term and is used in many Japanese martial
arts. Literately mean "way of doing" and refers to a series of
practice moves to build on form and technique. As Mike Rother presented What is
the core form and technique that we want to build in leaders? 1. The ability to
systematically improve processes toward a clear target (Improvement Kata) 2.
The ability to coach others on the Improvement Kata (Coaching Kata). The
routine of process improvement is done through the Toyota improvement kata, and
the routine of coaching people is done through the Toyota coaching kata. The
Deming cycle (PDCA) is a learning cycle rather than a process improvement
cycle. If you have solved the problem and didn't develop your people, then the
process will fail! People won't be able to continue managing the process with
the new way if they haven't been trained on the culture of continuous
improvement. Things will slip back and it will be difficult to sustain the lean
results which is the problem in many companies. I highly encourage you to read
this article: Culture Change Through the Problem Solving Kata.
TPS is the Toyota people &
system: the system is built by people,
modified by people and improved by people. People are the foundation of the
continuous improvement. Actually, people are more important than the process.
And companies should give higher priority in developing their people and
provide an excellent working environment for them. Unfortunately, many
companies say that they do lean, six sigma and other improvement projects to
improve the morale of people and develop a new routine of thinking. But they
are actually focusing only on the process and seeking the short outcomes.
Toyota is highly committed to leadership development and training and coaching
their employees.
In the Toyota Under Fire, when Jeff interviewed Akio Toyoda
after the several recalls crisis, Mr Toyoda said that the rate of growth was
higher than the rate of people development.
TPS is a system to build quality for
customers: Jidoka is one of the main pillar of
TPS. The TPS has been made like a roof. If you take any of the pillars holding
the roof, the system will collapse. Take out quality, then no TPS. Jidoka is a
principle of building quality for customers not inspecting quality. Building
quality mean making it right at the first time. If you are making defected
products or unacceptable quality standard for your customer and filtering this
defects out through an inspection system, then there is no build in quality.
And No Jidoka. You are just fire fighting the mistakes made at the
manufacturing process. This costs a lot of money, resources, and put the
business in risk if a defected product passed to your customer. Quality is what
keeps any organization in business.
TPS is a strategy: a strategy for excellence. TPS is a strategy to achieve the
operations excellence goals in quality, productivity, costs, safety and people
morale. Without a vision aligned with the strategic objectives and the stretch
goals, the improvement effort will have no direction to go. A process like
Hoshin Kanri will help align the goals, the plan and the effort toward a common
goal in order to achieve the strategic business objectives. Hoshin Kanri pays
attention to the method rather than the results unlike the management by
objectives MBO. Hoshin kanri focus on the innovative methods of achieving the
target under a high motivation and development system.
TPS is total performance solutions: the tools and if used properly can turnaround any organization.
Speed kills the competition. All the tools you need to maximize the
productivity, quality, speeds, and delivery are included in the TPS. You just
need to learn how to use these tools and the culture required to implement them
in your organization. And remember, a good culture will last forever, a good
toolkit under s stressed management system will die quickly! It is all about
leadership and how are you going to use these tools.
TPS is not lean: yes we called it an inventory reduction program when we
first heard of it. Just In Time is one of the main pillars in TPS. Just In Time
mean ideally "One Piece Flow" the biggest waste in the process is the
inventory. Inventory is the greatest waste and it hides many problems like
quality, downtimes, waiting,...etc. Lets get back to history. Prior to
the 1970 oil crisis, very few people in the world know what Toyota was up to.
The fact that is emerged stronger than ever while many of its competitors were
quite battered made people take notice. People went to Japan to find out how
Toyota had done this. What came back was that Toyota was doing something called
"just in time." in the west this was interpreted as an inventory
reduction program. As a result it became known as "just in time inventory"
program. No body really believed that inventory could be taken out of the whole
value stream, and so "just-in-time" came to mean "just-in-time
inventory; go beat the heck out of your suppliers." The big three auto
companies (Ford, General Motors, Chrysler) had lots of power over their
suppliers, and they became pretty expert at this tactic - to their eventual
detriment. James P Womack came with Lean Thinking in 1996 and helped many to
see the whole value chain. He showed how waste clogs the system, and how
continuous improvement was needed to link all parts of the chain to customer
demand. he explain his findings in plain English, but once again we didn't
hear. We somehow managed to ignore the whole system aspect of Lean thinking and
started calling it "Lean" or "Lean manufacturing" instead.
This tragic reduction in scope allowed business leaders dismiss lean as a
manufacturing thing . As a result, manufacturing companies believed that lean
could be delegated down, and non manufacturing companies believed that lean
didn't apply to them at all. Lean may be an element of the larger strategy, but
it most likely to be relegated to the plant. As a result, one company after
another has tried Lean and has failed.
TPS is not a translated production
system: many techniques that we use today
with little or no conscious are Japanese terms. Techniques like Poka
Yoka, Hoshin Kanri, Genchi Genbutsu and the others. TPS is not a documented
process so it can be translated via people in Japan and USA and passed through
different cultures. Taiichi Ohno refused at the beginning to document TPS in
fear that people will narrowly focus on tools and theories. He said, if you
write it, you will kill it. For example Genchu Genbutsu also mean gemba which
is translated as "go and see" is being used by many leaders. Leaders
would only go & see when there is a problem. Gemba is being used only as a
problem solving process. Actually, Gemba is a place for teaching, and learning
management. Gemba is the place where value creating work happen, and where you
should put value for your customers. All lean tools and techniques like value
stream mapping, work standardization process, ...etc must be planned, measured,
adapted, standardized and improved at the workplace. Gemba is not only a place
to solve problems by grasping the current situation and finding the root causes
by asking 5 whys. If you are interested in this subject, please read my article
Daily Walks Train Future Leaders published in the Industrial Management
Magazine JAN/FEB 2014 at the IIE.
TPS is a pull system not a kanban
system: a pull system is the key to avoid
over production waste. You are linking the chain to the customer demand instead
of a schedule. You are no longer producing based on a schedule. As presented
in Toyota Way, kanban is an organized system of inventory buffer.
And according to Ohno, inventory is a waste. So kanban is something to strive
to get rid of, not to be proud of!
TPS is not making to order in
sequence: TPS promotes leveling rather than
making to order in sequence. Most of suppliers try to follow the lean principle
of making to order. But since customer demands can never been stable, and is
naturally unpredictable, irregular and vary significantly, following the
customer demand in sequence will cause a lot of issues and wastes. You have to
level the product volume and mix. That's why many businesses have difficulties
building to order, and say that Toyota has a stable environment, less
fluctuation in customer demand, and TPS is only suitable for Toyota. They don't
understand the underlying power of leveling.
TPS is 8 steps Toyota business
practice: those are the eight steps of Toyota
business practice in solving problems. 1. Define the problem relative to the
ideal (plan). 2. Break down the problem into manageable pieces (plan). 3.
Find the root cause of the problem (plan). 4. Set the targets for
achievement (plan). 5. Select the suitable solution from different
countermeasures (plan). 6. Implement the plan (do). 7. Revise the
outcomes as expected (check). 8. Find out what is going wrong, adapt, adjust,
and then repeat the cycle (act). The plan is invoked 5 times, this is to ensure
that the root cause of the problem has been eliminated. Lean emphasize on the
plan. And the plan phase cannot be created without a daily observation at the
gemba to find the root causes, gather facts, discuss things with the process
operators and develop the best countermeasure from different alternatives. For
more about how the Deming cycle is utilized to develop leaders, read this article.
TPS is not zero inventory: many think that JIT is a zero inventory. The ideal thing is
"one piece flow" which can ONLY be established through a production
cell. There is a buffer. A little use of buffer. There is a buffer in the Andon
system. There is a buffer to protect your customer. There is a buffer to avoid
stopping the whole production line to fix a problem. There is a buffer to avoid
breaking down a critical manufacturing process.
TPS is build on deep supplier
relationships: this is one of the most important
factors in the success of Toyota. Few companies realize so. Giving a small
example, if you are not working with your suppliers to truly reduce the
inventory holding, the process will fail. If you are trying to reduce inventory
and asking your supplier to deliver fewer batch sizes and deliver more
frequent, if your supplier is not ready, the process will fail. I have seen
many and many companies trying to shift the cost of holding the inventory to
their suppliers. No real savings in the complete value stream! You are
redistribution of cost to suppliers, and no real savings. Very few people
understand this. I recommend reading this article
at Harvard Business Review. Building this kind of relation with suppliers is
really one of the most difficult parts in implementing the TPS, but it is the most important part too.
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So what about you, have you tried to use the Toyota Way in your organization? How was the success? The results? Do you think that all employees and people in your organization are truly understanding the TPS principles? What about the top management commitment to the change? Do you think this article made any difference in what you were thinking about TPS? How?
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