Toyota Way Fieldbook : A Practical Guide for Implementing Toyota's 4Ps

(Figure 13-3)]. It is also management’s responsibility to establish expectations for

the organization, to identify weak points in the system, and to apply the appro-

priate resources. Mid-level opportunities are generally initiated by the supervi-

sor, the team, or by an individual. These items may be based on overall compa-

ny objectives for improvement or on issues of particular challenge to the group

affected. Finally, Toyota is able to capture a huge opportunity by facilitating the

individual efforts toward improvement. The individual or small team nearly

always initiates these efforts. Each person understands the process of continu-

ous improvement and pursues that objective in his or her daily activities.

In fact, continuous improvement is so important that changes to processes

are made up to the last day of production in a product cycle. This seems para-

doxical until it is understood that the idea of continuous improvement truly

means continuous—never ending. If people believe that improvements are only

desired under the “correct” conditions, they will, in effect, not make improve-

ments because the conditions may never be correct. We’ve often heard people state

that a product or process will “go away” in six months, so it is not practical to

spend time and money improving it. The Toyota Way suggests that a small

improvement with minor effort yielding perhaps one second of time or one cent

per piece saved over the six-month period is, in fact, a practical idea. It facilitates

the idea that improvement must occur at all times at all levels by all individuals.

Any rules suggesting appropriate times and conditions for improvement will

kill the spirit of continuous improvement.

Chapter 13. Problem Solving the Toyota Way 311

Management Kaizen
Cross-functional Team

Quality Circle

Kaizen

Small Team
Individual
Individual
Daily Kaizen

Figure 13-3. Toyota leverages opportunities at all levels