Coordination and Lean
Going back 20 years, the national bestseller The Machine that Changed the World: The Story of Lean Productionby Womack, Jones, and Roos devotes three chapters to supply chain coordination, dealing wit...
Managing Supply Chains
The Practice of Learning
Learning requires optimism and the spirit to take up challenges. The Toyota Way document states that: “We accept the challenges with a creative spirit and the courage to realize our own dreams without...
Learning Rate Implications
A classic problem studied by researchers from many fields is how firms allocate resources to the exploration of new possibilities versus the exploitation of known certainties. The returns of explorati...
Continuously Solving the Root Causes
How does continuous improvement take place in a supply chain? In our view, continuous improvement is learning and implementing the lessons learned; thus, much of what has been written about continuous...
Developing Your People and Partners
At a very broad level, Toyota believes that continuous improvement and respect for people are at the core of its philosophy. Careful reading of the Toyota Way guidelines reveals what is meant by respe...
Applying the Above Process Design Principles
When inventories accumulate in a supply chain at different stages, they make demand less visible and the reaction to changes slower than if there were less inventory. (This topic is covered in detail ...
Managing Variety Using Standardized Tasks
Most firms have realized the importance of standardizing tasks; however, the degree of standardization often stops at the tasks that directly relate to producing a product or, to a lesser extent, serv...
Managing Variability by Stopping the Line to Fix Problems
The virtues of stopping to fix problems are well known. In a supply chain, that method might not work the best. In the seat example above, it is not possible to stop the line to fix the problem each t...
Managing Visibility by Leveling the Workload
Heijunka—the leveling of the workload—serves many purposes. First, it is a prerequisite to having continuous flow and pull production. Second, at the supply chain level, it reduces artificial demand f...
Managing Velocity Using Continuous Process Flow
By making the flow in the supply chain at the global level even and uniform to the most practical extent, the designers of the supply chain are able to detect systematic variations quickly. This detec...
The Essential Ingredients of the Toyota Way
The ingredients of the Toyota Way are unique and effective. To sequence their description, this chapter’s layout follows Liker’s approach. Examples specific to how Toyota applies these principles to m...
The Toyota Way of Managing Supply Chains
The Toyota Way is made up of four major elements: long-term philosophy, right process, development of people, and continuous solving of root problems. Taken together, they are the secret recipe for co...