this expensive and knowledgeable mentor to create the showcase
that would get the plant visibility throughout the company. But
when push came to shove, he went with what was familiar and
comfortable to him. Going to the floor to see for himself, to truly
understand, was not within his definition of a plant manager’s
responsibility, and was not comfortable.
- There’s a difference between a vendor and a strong technical
partner. Clearly, the A1 line benefited greatly by working with
Toyoda Machinery Works. The X10 team selected the same types of
machines that were currently making bad parts on existing lines—
with no root cause yet identified—supposedly to get “commonality.”
They picked separate jigs and fixture makers because of price and
locality without considering the complex interactions between these
and the machines themselves. Yoshina, as an experienced practitioner
of the Toyota Way, knew that spending a few dollars more on good
tooling and jigs now would yield a lower total cost over the lifetime
of the product. While the X10 line was created by mixing several
brands of machines in a way that had caused problems in previously
installed X10 lines, the A1 group relied on the experience of Yoshina
and TMW as to what machines and processes to utilize in manufac-
turing the pistons. Yoshina and TMW were able to draw on a vast
database of machines and processes that would robustly accomplish
the piston manufacturing task at hand.
- There’s a difference between learning TPS conceptually and
deeply understanding. This company had been doing lean training
for years, and the vocabulary of TPS was well known. But there were
specific challenges in machining that were not well understood. It
was clear that the engineering teams were struggling to make the
right technical choices despite their experience as engineers and
having gone through TPS training.
A major difference between the X10 and A1 lines that probably led
to many of the quality differences between them was how the
tooling moved. The X10 tooling moved vertically, with the part
clamped in the x-y plane. Due to the force of gravity, all chips and
coolant would fall onto the tooling, leaving them on the parts.
Over time these wastes would build up and become a big contrib-
utor to defective pistons. In contrast, the A1 tooling moved hori-
zontally, with the part clamped in the y-z plane. With this design,
though the chips and coolant would still fall due to gravity, it would
not fall onto the part, but into the chip separator, for the coolant
to be reclaimed and the chips recycled. This is a subtle technical
difference that requires the kind of attention to detail characteristic
of the Toyota Way.
Chapter 20. Leading the Change 447
