- Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right
the first time.
Toyota has won the highly prestigious Deming Award for quality in Japan and
won about every award J.D. Power and Associates offers as well. Quality for
the customer drives the value proposition of Toyota. Of course, Toyota uses all the
modern quality assurance methods that have become standard in the industry.
But what sets them apart goes back to the founder of the company, Sakichi
Toyoda watching his grandmother slave away at a manual loom, working her
fingers to the bone. Eventually Sakichi invented a power loom, and ultimately
he solved a nagging problem with power looms.
The problem was, if a single thread broke, then all the material woven after
that was waste until somebody noticed the problem and reset the loom. The
solution was to build into the loom the human capability to detect the problem
and to stop itself. To alert the operator that the loom needed assistance, he devel-
oped the andonsystem, which signaled the need for help. This invention became
the basis for one of the main pillars of the Toyota Production System—jidoka
(machines with human intelligence). It is the foundation to Toyota’s philosophy
of building in quality. When there is a problem, do not just keep going with the
intention of fixing it later. Stop and fix the problem now. Productivity may suffer
now, but in the long run productivity will be enhanced as problems are found
and countermeasures put in place.
- Standardized tasks and processes are the foundation for
continuous improvement and employee empowerment.
You cannot predict the timing and output of your processes unless you have
stable, repeatable processes. The foundation for flow and pull is predictable and
repeatable processes. But standardization is often confused with rigidity, and
the assumption is that creative, individual expression is stifled. In fact what
Toyota has found is the exact opposite. By standardizing today’s best practices,
they capture the learning up to this point. The task of continuous improvement
is then to improve upon this standard, and the improvements are then incorpo-
rated into the new standard. Without this standardization process, individuals
can make great improvements in their own approach to the work but no one
will learn from them except through impromptu discussion. When an individual
moves on from that job, all of the learning is lost. Standards provide a launching
point for true and lasting innovation.
- Use visual control so no problems are hidden.
In these days of computerization, the ideal is the paperless office and paperless
factory. Put everything online. Yet, go to any Toyota manufacturing plant and
you will see paper kanban circulating through the factory, paper flip charts used