In a traditional auto company, it is difficult to pin down where the real responsibility for a new vehicle development program lies. Many departments and many executives have partial responsibility. If you want to find...
Shotaro Kamiya was to Toyota Motor Sales what Ohno was to the Toyota Production System. His leadership defined the sales philosophy of Toyota. Like most Toyota leaders, Kamiya could be described as a self-made man....
Given that the Toyota Way is to make decisions slowly, thoroughly considering alternatives (see Make Decisions Slowly by Consensus,Thoroughly Considering All Options; Implement Rapidly (Nemawashi) on nemawashi), it was not surprising that Toyota took a...
Even when Toyota promoted someone from an unusual part of the company to save it from impending doom, there has never been a sudden change of direction. Perhaps this is the concept of eliminating muri...
In industry today, the watchword is flexibility. Everyone wants to be as flexible as possible and Toyota is no exception. Originally, what allowed Toyota to compete with global players was its flexibility. To Toyota, flexibility...
In the early 1980s, the trend among automakers was to develop their own internal computer-aided design (CAD) system for designing parts on a computer rather than on paper blueprints. Toyota did this like everyone else,...
I accompanied the University of Michigan’s Dean of Engineering on a trip to Japan some years ago and one of our hosts was Mikio Kitano, who at that time was overseeing the Motomachi complex—Toyota’s largest...
When I teach about Toyota’s system, I start with the basics including kanban, which is mainly a manual visual process. If there is an information technology specialist in the house, he or she inevitably asks...
At Toyota, new technology is introduced only after it is proven out through direct experimentation with the involvement of a broad cross-section of people. This does not exclude new or cutting-edge technology. It means the...
In today’s world of computers, information technology, and automation, one of the goals is to make the office and factory paperless. You can now use computers, the Internet, and the corporate intranet to call up...
When I interviewed David Baxter, vice president at the Toyota Technical Center, he was a bit nervous about a report he was working on. It was the proposed budget for the entire center. The whole...
I have spent a lot of time at the Toyota Technical Center in Michigan, where they engineer vehicles like Camry and Avalon. For much of this time, Kunihiko (“Mike”) Masaki was the president there. Masaki...
Automakers in the U.S., as well as Japan, are required by law to keep service parts for vehicles for at least 10 years after they stop making the vehicles. This adds up to having millions...
Visual control is any communication device used in the work environment that tells us at a glance how work should be done and whether it is deviating from the standard. It helps employees who want...
When Americans were making pilgrimages to Japanese plants in the 1970s and ’80s, the first reaction was invariably “The factories were so clean you could eat off of the floor.” For the Japanese this was...
Mr. Ohno was passionate about TPS. He said you must clean up everything so you can see problems. He would complain if he could not look and see and tell if there is a problem....
The critical task when implementing standardization is to find that balance between providing employees with rigid procedures to follow and providing the freedom to innovate and be creative to meet challenging targets consistently for cost,...
The Toyota Way of handling the chaos of getting an army of people involved in creating and launching a new vehicle is to standardize the work in a balanced way that doesn’t give complete control...
Under Taylor’s (1947) scientific management, workers were viewed as machines who needed to be made as efficient as possible through the manipulations of industrial engineers and autocratic managers. The process consisted of the following: Scientifically...
Toyota’s standards have a much broader role than making shop floor workers’ tasks repeatable and efficient. The Toyota Way results in standardized tasks throughout the company’s white-collar work processes, such as engineering. Everyone in the...