the ability to produce the desired quantity of product, thus causing customer
service levels to suffer. To avoid affecting the customer, appropriate countermea-
sures such as increased inspection or production time may be employed to protect
the customer. These extra measures will increase the cost. An operator who detects
the defect may conclude that the defect is “the problem,” when in fact the true
problem is the affect on customer service, and ultimately on the total cost.
The placement of the measures in this model does not imply importance. In
other words, cost is not the most important measure. Customer satisfaction is
the most important measure. We want to achieve the highest level of customer
satisfaction while maintaining the lowest possible cost.
Delivering a quality product to the customer is always understood to be the
number one goal. A tenet of the Toyota Way is that a defect should never knowingly
be passed on to the next process. The effort to ensure the correction, containment,
or control of the quality problem will have a negative impact on productivity
and cost. Notice the lack of “customer delivery” or “safety.”
Within Toyota, all processes are closely linked to each other, and the “cus-
tomer” is actually the next process. Given these tight connections and the fact
thatallprocesses in the plant and throughout the entire supply chain are inher-
ently linked, if you fail to meet the customer demand (the next process), the
entireoperation will begin to stop, one process at a time (like dominos). For this
reason, the satisfaction of the customer is implicitly understood and does not
need to be measured separately. If a process is unable to meet the demand, it is
a productivity issue. In addition, safety is an implicit expectation for everyone,
and as such, may be “omitted” from the discussion of measures. Safety as the
number one priority is a given.
328 THETOYOTAWAYFIELDBOOK
COST
CUSTOMER
SERVICE
PRODUCTIVITY QUALITY
Figure 14-1. Relationship of primary performance measures