Feb 1 2015
According to Chip Chapados, the concept of one-piece flow emerged from the need to rapidly detect defects in engine castings when Kiichiro Toyoda was reverse-engineering a Chevrolet engine in 1934, and it was originally called “one-by-one confirmation.”
Feb 18 2014
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You just can’t pass up an article with the perspectives on Lean of a recently retired Toyota executive, even if it is in the McKinsey Quarterly. Most interesting are his stories about plants outside of Toyota that he visited recently, where he criticizes his hosts for complacency.
Because of the author’s background, when he says “Lean,” he means TPS or the Toyota Way. He also uses Toyota’s own “respect for people.” mistranslation of its “respect for humanity” (人間性尊重) principle. Again, it’s not about saying “please” and “thank you” but about taking full advantage of the unique capabilities people have when compared to other resources.
See on www.mckinsey.com
Sep 18 2013
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
Washington Post
The Legacy of Eiji Toyoda
Businessweek
He transformed Toyota into a global powerhouse with management and manufacturing processes that transcended the auto industry.
See on www.businessweek.com
Sep 15 2013
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
The Economist is a British magazine not known for getting facts wrong, but it did here.
Lean Production is not for the 1980s. The name may be from the late 1980s but the thing itself is a work in progress that started decades earlier. And it is from Toyota, not from generic “large Japanese companies.”
And a competent implementation does not start by making things worse.
See on www.economist.com
Sep 5 2013
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
This form is of interest because it comes from Toyota. Note that, in Toyota literature, to “add value” means physically changing the product. It is not used in the US Lean sense of something a customer is willing to pay for.
The labels for some of the waste categories are unusual. “Defects” is here labeled “Rework,” which seems to exclude the option that defective products are just scrapped.
This audit form has no checkboxes, but instead blocks of space to enter free text. It is even followed by an overall “Notes” section.
What this says is that the purpose of the form is to prompt teams to observe and record their findings. It is not about scoring areas or lines on any scale. It is to help improvement efforts, not benchmark against others.
See on www.toyotaforklifts.co.uk
Mar 30 2015
Toyota’s Shared-Parts Strategy | IndustryWeek
Source: www.industryweek.com
Specifics are trickling out about Toyota’s plans. It seems that they want to make more different products from fewer components and have plants that are competitive even at low volume.
Readers’ comments on the idea of having fewer platforms and more common parts are focused on the risk of extensive recalls, and the way such recalls can wipe out any savings achieved by the strategy.
It really is a matter of degree and of execution. Having fewer dashboard options might reduce the attractiveness of your products, but using fewer types of proportioning valves will not. Also, it is easier to ensure not only availability but quality as well for fewer components, making recalls less likely.
With regards to volume in a given plant, Toyota’s strategy seems a continuation of their work on the Global Body Line, in which the same infrastructure and fixtures could be used for robotic welding at high volume and manual welding at low volume.
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
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By Michel Baudin • Press clippings 1 • Tags: Toyota, Toyota Production System