Another example of the technical differences between the two
lines was the misapplication of the concept of one-piece flow by
the X10 team. By applying the idea too literally in a machining
environment, several things happened to the X10 process. First,
the operator was underutilized. In a machining environment, an
operator’s primary job is to check quality, change tools, and
perform minor troubleshooting while picking up processed parts
from one machine, setting them in the next, then pressing a cycle
start button. If the person is only moving one piece at a time
between machines, he or she has an extra hand free, and the
process is wasting human operator potential. Moreover, the X10
team made a terrible mistake in terms of machine capacity. The
machine they had purchased could make several pistons at a
time, and the final product actually required four pieces, but they
insisted on one-piece flow. (See the waste reduction model in
Figure 5-1, Chapter 5.) The core philosophy is to reduce waste.
Flow is a method used to surface problems, and single-piece flow
is not always the best choice. In this case it added to waste.
- Don’t settle for elaborate technical quality solutions when you
can build in quality.Jidoka, or endowing a process with the human
characteristic of being able to determine a quality product has been
created, is a Toyota Production System term that the X10 and A1
teams took quite differently. It appears that the data collection pack-
age the X10 group was considering would be used to make sure
that no bad parts were passed on to the next process, an admirable
goal. However, the system was geared toward uncovering defects,
not preventing their creation altogether. This is an example of
automating data collection rather than finding the root cause of a
problem and quickly countermeasuring it. In comparison, the A1 line
was designed to produce fewer defects, simply based on the physi-
cal machining characteristics and the process it operated within. The
performance indicators of each line demonstrate that designing the
process to reduce the production of bad parts from the outset vastly
outweighs the results of simply catching errors that an inferior
system creates.
- The most cost-effective short-term decision can be the most
costly in the long term. The decision to save $95,000 in up-front
costs and not bring the metal-coating process in-house reduced
initial capital expenditure but increased lead time and inventory. It
also hindered the ability of Acme to solve problems quickly, since
they were not in control of defects coming from the metal-coating
process—defects that had been on the rise lately. This is another
example of short-term spreadsheet-cost thinking versus total life-
cycle cost minimization.
448 THETOYOTAWAYFIELDBOOK
