Toyota production system install#
Toyota production system series#

They revisit the organization of their production line to determine why the machine was not available, and redesign the flow path. If workers at an auto parts supplier find themselves waiting to send a product to the next designated machine they conclude that their demand on the next machine doesn’t match their expectations. Goods and services don’t flow to the next available person or machine-but to a person or machine.

Every product and service flows along a simple, specified path.

Once the cause is identified, it’s resolved rather than kept hidden.

Toyota production system install#

Designated assistants must respond at once and resolve the problem within the worker’s cycle time (e.g., the 55 seconds it takes to install a front seat).įailure to fulfill these specifications signals a search for potential causes-such as ambiguous requests from colleagues or an overwhelmed assistant. Workers encountering a problem ask for help immediately. Suppliers must respond to materials requests within specified periods of time. Workers needing parts submit cards specifying part number, quantity, and required destination. Each worker knows who provides what to him, and when.Then they determine whether to change the task specifications or retrain the worker to prevent a recurrence. If a worker finds himself doing task 6 before task 4 or falling behind schedule, he and his supervisor correct the problem promptly. Installing the right-front seat in a Camry requires seven tasks performed in a specific sequence over 55 seconds. This specificity enables people to see and address deviations immediately-encouraging continual learning and improvement. Employees follow a well-defined sequence of steps for a particular job. All work is highly specified in its content, sequence, timing, and outcome.

But by dedicating yourself to the process, you stand a better chance of replicating Toyota’s DNA-and its performance. Result? A disciplined yet flexible and creative community of scientists who continually push Toyota closer to its zero-defects, just-in-time, no-waste ideal. Deviations from the specifications become instantly visible, prompting people to respond immediately with real-time experiments to eradicate problems in their own work. The rules rigidly specify how every activity-from the shop floor to the executive suite, from installing seat belts to reconfiguring a manufacturing plant-should be performed. Like strands of DNA, these rules govern how people carry out their jobs, how they interact with each other, how products and services flow, and how people identify and address process problems. Why? Managers adopt TPS’s obvious practices, without applying the four unwritten rules that make TPS successful. And companies in a wide range of industries-aerospace, metals processing, consumer products-have tried to imitate TPS. Toyota’s renowned production system (TPS) has long demonstrated the competitive advantage of continuous process improvement. And it is the continual response to those problems that makes this seemingly rigid system so flexible and adaptive to changing circumstances. Every activity, connection, and production path designed according to these rules must have built-in tests that signal problems immediately. And the last, how people learn to improve. The third governs how production lines are constructed. The second, the way they interact with one another. The first rule governs the way workers do their work. Making the implicit explicit, the authors lay out four principles that show how Toyota sets up all its operations as experiments and teaches the scientific method to its workers. The Toyota Production System grew out of the workings of the company over 50 years, and it has never actually been written down. And it stimulates them to engage in the kind of experimentation that is widely recognized as the cornerstone of a learning organization. This approach – the scientific method – is not imposed on workers, it’s engrained in them. Whenever Toyota defines a specification, it is establishing a hypothesis that is then tested through action.

Toyota production system series#

That’s because the company’s operations can be seen as a continuous series of controlled experiments. How can that be? After an extensive four-year study of the system in more than 40 plants, the authors came to understand that at Toyota it’s the very rigidity of the operations that makes the flexibility possible. Yet at the same time, Toyota’s operations are enormously flexible and responsive to customer demand. On the one hand, every activity, connection, and production flow in a Toyota factory is rigidly scripted. The Toyota production system is a paradox.