least for the high-volume cabinets, that six-to-eight-week lead time could be
reduced and level the schedule, creating a more efficient process. In fact, the plant
reorganized around three product family value streams, used some finished
goods inventory to level the schedule, freed up one-fourth of the plant for new
business, and dramatically reduced overall inventory, lead time, and total cost.
To accomplish what appears to be a logical plan is not as easy as it sounds.
The furniture manufacturer had to change the way sales people placed orders.
They had to change the distribution process and the way production control
scheduled the plant. These are all governed by different functional groups who
had been doing things a certain way for decades. Nobody believed the new sys-
tem could possibly work, and all predicted disaster. Overcoming this resistance
required a strong vision of a future state and a lot of top management support.
Frequently, sales groups work to incentives based on sales targets by month
or quarter. Such incentive systems lead to lumpy sales patterns with serious dis-
counts to move product at the end of the bonus period. At Toyota, sales is aware
of the importance of a leveled schedule in production. While, even at Toyota,
production often complains about what sales does to them, there is a lot more
cooperation than we typically see in other companies. This cooperation is
encouraged by top management who understand the implications of sales pat-
terns on the leveled schedule that is the foundation of TPS.
Thinking in systems terms and enterprise terms is just plain hard. And
learning to think in value stream terms is the most critical in leveling the schedule—
the foundation of lean systems.
Case Study: Leveling the Schedule in an Engineering
Organization
Most knowledge work is inherently lumpy. And you cannot parcel out
a schedule in units the way you can in a manufacturing process.
Nonetheless, Toyota has found a way to level the workload in engi-
neering new products to a far greater degree than its competitors.
First, you have to get some basic stability in the process. Toyota has
developed a stable development process in which there are clear stages,
and each one takes a standard amount of time and engineering hours.
Second, this allows Toyota to set up a planned schedule at the begin-
ning of the program and stick to it. Roughly, Toyota freshens cars every
two years and issues a major new version about every four years.
Knowing this, not all cars are completely overhauled in the same
way. This is spread out so that roughly one-quarter of the launches
are overhauled in one year.
Third, within a vehicle program, Toyota has a clear profile of manpower
over the program. The program definition phase starts off with a smallChapter 7. Leveling: Be More Like the Tortoise Than the Hare 167