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Posts that link to interesting articles. Recommended posts: Going Lean in Health Care - Management Advice Failures - Ackoff's F-laws: Common Sins of Management - Problems Caused by Performance Appraisal - Google Management - Box on Quality - What Is Muda? - Making Changes and Taking Risks - Forget Targets - Lean Material Handling
Related: Curious Cat Management Articles - link to hundreds of management improvement articles, reports, blog posts, podcasts, handbooks, case studies... we have selected
At the core of the company’s success is the Toyota Production System, which took shape in the years after the Second World War, when Japan was literally rebuilding itself, and capital and equipment were hard to come by. A Toyota engineer named Taiichi Ohno turned necessity into virtue, coming up with a system to get as much as possible out of every part, every machine, and every worker. The principles were simple, even obvious - do away with waste, have parts arrive precisely when workers need them, fix problems as soon as they arise. And they weren’t even entirely new - Ohno himself cited Henry Ford and American supermarkets as inspirations. But what Toyota has done, better than any other manufacturing company, is turn principle into practice. In some cases, it has done so with inventions, like the andon cord, which any worker can pull to stop the assembly line if he notices a problem, or kanban, a card system that allows workers to signal when new parts are needed.
Very true, except one thing. Toyota’s innovation is not limited to process and execution. Toyota’s long term vision results in very dramatic innovation (that granted is not getting the press today - check back in 20 years, I think you will be reading about it then). For some examples see: Toyota’s Partner Robot, Toyota as Homebuilder, Toyota Engineers a New Plant: the Living Kind and The Birth of Prius.
A company truly driven by a focus on continual improvement, respect for all employees and reasonable executive compensation might be a company serious about adopting Deming and Toyota management principles. It is hard for me to imagine such a situation that doesn’t truly seek, as the primary aim of the organization, to benefit many stakeholders (workers, owners, suppliers, customers…) not just executives (or just executives, board and owners…).
Related: Toyota Management Develops the New Camry - Better and Different - Deming and Toyota - Toyota Keeps Improving - More Positive Press for Toyota Management - Good Execution is Important
What’s driving Toyota Canada’s success? - CIO reveals all
* Cutting down the customer problem resolution from weeks to an average of three days through this initiative alone;
* Early detection of customer dissatisfaction in services
* Reducing detection of product defects (from months to days).
The Toyota Canada CIO talks about the tremendous business benefits from this seamless freeflow of information. “When a defect is detected at the dealership, the next day it would up to our engineering department.” The speed at which information traverses is of immense value – especially when new vehicles are launched. Tien cited an example.
“We recently launched a new Toyota Corolla [model]. If there were a problem with a door knob of the vehicle, the plant would know about it and a fix would be put in place.”
An article well worth reading. Related: Toyota IT Overview - Lessons from Toyota’s IT Strategy - Good Customer Service Example at Toyota - Software Supporting Processes Not the Other Way Around
At Toyota, a Global Giant Reaches for Agility
The videos show everything from the correct way to hold a screw to the best way to hold an air gun so that a worker’s hand will not tire in a few hours. This month, workers from Toyota’s plant in Thailand took part in training required for jobs in their plant’s paint shop. Listening as an interpreter translated from Japanese into Thai, the workers were shown how to bend their knees and spray a water gun across a clear panel of Plexiglas.
Yet another article on the management of Toyota. And here is another: Toyota heir slowly following in family footsteps. And another: Toyota explores more efficient methods to build cars.
Related: 12 Stocks for 10 Years Feb 2008 Update - No Excessive Senior Executive Pay at Toyota - New Articles on Toyota Management - Toyota’s Effort to Stay Toyota - More Positive Press for Toyota Management - Toyota in the US Economy
Toyota’s All-Out Drive To Stay Toyota
Related: lean manufacturing portal - Toyota management posts - Toyota IT Overview - New Toyota CEO’s Views
I find the quote “2007 has been a difficult year for Toyota” found in The Dings and Dents of Toyota a bit amusing. Toyota has had some problems as the article notes like product recalls and losing a handful of employees to Ford and Chrysler. They are about even with GM in worldwide sales and posted a profit of nearly $14 Billion (I believe maybe 20 companies have ever earned that much in any year) in the year ending March 2007 and continue to make huge profits this year (Toyota reported their best quarter ever in August). With difficulty like this who needs success 
He is right that the problems are exaggerated. I agree that Toyota has to maintain a laser-like focus on improvement. I don’t agree that they need to rethink their purpose in life (I have a feeling that is taken out of context). They need to maintain and maybe even increase their commitment to their purpose in life.
In our post New Toyota CEO’s Views in 2005, we quote the new CEO, Katsuaki Watanabe:
He was right then and that is true now.
Related: Reacting to Product Problems - Jim Press, Toyota N. American President, Moves to Chrysler - Toyota Homes - Respect for People at Toyota
Bringing ‘Lean’ Principles to Service Industries by Julia Hanna
In their research, Staats and Upton document how the use of lean principles affected the workflow at Wipro. The concept of “kaizen,” or continuous improvement, for example, resulted in a more iterative approach to software development projects versus a sequential, “waterfall” method in which each step of the process is completed in turn by a separate worker.
By sharing mistakes across the process, the customer and project team members benefit individually and collectively from increased opportunities to learn from their errors; the project also moves along more quickly because bugs are discovered in the system earlier in the development process.
Iteration is very important. It is important in proper use of the PDSA cycle - many quick iterations are much better than one long slow one. And for software application development it is an excellent strategy.
I think iteration is even more important in software application development than most other areas (for now anyway) because many stakeholders cannot visualize what they need from software. Therefore attempts to force rigid requirements up front fail. No matter how much effort you put in the stakeholder just doesn’t know until they see it and use it - then they can tell you what they want changed. so design a system that works given this - iteration and agile development work very well.
Related: lean thinking articles - Experiment Quickly and Often - Management Consulting (what does the consultants web site show?) - Indian Firms Learning From Toyota (on Wipro posted here in 2005) - posts on improving software development - Not Lean Retailing
Strategic Deployment: How To Think Like Toyota:
Another company using strategy deployment, HNI Corp., has used a policy deployment mechanism for more than a decade. The office furniture manufacturer, an IndustryWeek Best Manufacturing Company for five consecutive years, deploys its strategy companywide using a Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) sequence that moves from a three-year corporate plan to a unit-level development process that creates one-year plans with action steps. Progress reviews and annual reviews evaluate progress and then the cycle starts again, explains Todd Murphy, vice president and general manager of The HON Co.’s Cedartown, Ga., facility, a 2005 IW Best Plants winner. HON is the largest operating company within HNI Corp.
Also central to policy deployment at HON is rapid continuous improvement, or RCI, a company culture focused on making breakthrough improvements. Further aligning policy deployment at HON is its reward system, which is linked to the achievement of policy deployment goals.
How Curiosity Empowers Toyota by Keith McFarland:
For more than 70 years, Toyota’s curiosity has allowed it to build, brick by brick, a commercial fortress. It has scanned the globe for the best ideas—from styling to manufacturing to quality management—and imbued those ideas with a power that often surprises even the people who came up with them in the first place.
Curiosity seems like just what a cat (or company) needs to grow and learn and improve
Related: Curious Cat management articles - posts on the Toyota Management System - lean manufacturing portal
Sybron has adopted principles known as Danaher Business Systems, which he called a “playbook” to make the company run as a more efficient team. It’s centered on “kaizen,” a quality improvement process that grew out of the teaching of W. Edwards Deming. The focus on manufacturing and operations, combined “with our sales and marketing expertise (has) made us a much stronger company,” Tuttle said.
Danaher continues to do a good job improving management practices one purchase at a time. I continue to eye Danaher as a stock to buy but have not bought yet.
Related: Danaher Practicing Lean Thinking - Lean Thinking at Danaher - Tilting at Ludicrous CEO Pay - lean manufacturing directory
Harvard Business Review has a new article on Toyota that both the Elegant Solutions blog (by Matthew E. May author of Elegant Solutions: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation - via: lean blog) and Got Boondoggle, have raved about.
Amazing HBR Interview with Toyota President Watanabe on Elegant Solutions:
What’s Next for Toyota?, Got Boondoogle:
For those people thinking they were catching up on Toyota that might not be good news. I suppose you could hope that Toyota will fail, but that doesn’t seem likely given past experience (and there continued vigilance). I don’t think we will see them spend $40 billion on robots and then decide they can’t make it work (GM in the 1980’s). But it is much easier to fail that succeed, so it is possible.
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In my opinion Clayton Christensen offers truly insightful ideas on innovation and management. He presents the rare management advice that is not only good but also new - an incredibly rare combination. The current issue of Business Week includes an interview with him: Clayton Christensen’s Innovation Brain:
While some of Christensen’s ideas are new he also builds on existing ideas. The idea on customer focus being a potential trap was discussed by Deming a great deal. Interesting point on Google, I must agree, though it makes me nervous to think that way: it is easier to mess up success than to fix a mess. I will be interested to read his ideas on the health care system.
Related: Six Keys to Building New Markets by Unleashing Disruptive Innovation - Management Improvement Leaders - articles by Christensen - The Innovators Solution - What Job Does Your Product Do?
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Continuous Improvement, an article from the Label and Narrow Web trade magazine (”for the narrow web segment of converting and printing”), is an article with some nice anecdotes of successfully applying lean thinking.
Luminer Converting has been assisted in its Lean venture by the New Jersey Manufacturing Extension Program; similar operations exist in almost all US states. “Through them we received a grant which paid for 90 percent of the consultancy fees we incurred,” Spina notes.
via: Lean Printing - a new lean blog
Related: It’s Easy Being Lean - Wisconsin Manufacturing - lean manufacturing articles - Transforming With Lean
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Six Sigma winning supply-chain converts
Next year, senior managers at Cummins will be required to have Six Sigma certification before they can switch jobs or be promoted. “Six Sigma is headed toward being a condition of employment,” Strodtbeck said.
…
“In 10 years, will we be calling it Six Sigma? I don’t think so,” said Roger Schmenner, associate dean for Indianapolis programs with the Kelley School of Business. “We’ll have something else with a new name. Will it use the same statistical techniques? Absolutely, because some of these things are immutable.”
Six sigma has persisted for well beyond a 10 years already. I must admit I think the name “six sigma” is not the best but it seems to be holding its own. Six sigma is obviously achieving results many companies find worthwhile as they continue to grow their efforts year after year. While I would agree I think it is likely six sigma efforts will transform and be renamed within the next ten years, in many organizations, the momentum seems to be strong still - which is very rare for a management approach. I agree that is due to the benefits of applying statistical tools, education and focus on specific project based success.
Related: six sigma portal - Six Sigma Results - Can six sigma fix bad management? - Seduce Them With Six Sigma Success - 6 Sigma Conference 1999
Lean and Not Mean: Simple Management Most Effective:
“The driver of lean is all from the customer perspective,” says Holmes. “When we talk about value, its value from the customer’s viewpoint. So in any project, we look at the ratio of time in process versus value added time.
This article is another simple overview: I like the title. For more information, see some of our favorite lean articles and our lean manufacturing blog posts.
The triumph of lean production by Steve Schifferes
In contrast, workers at Ford’s brand-new truck plant in Dearborn, Michigan, pull the cord only twice a week
Just think about that Toyota’s Georgetown plant (seen by many as one of the best examples of lean manufacturing) stops the line 2,000 a week. Do you think your organizations systems are as well designed as the Georgetown plant? Does your organization stop to examine what needs to be improved with anything approaching that level (granted Georgetown is large but even so…)?
Related: Andon definition - Jidoka definition - Ford and Managing the Supplier Relationship - The Georgetown Kentucky Way - Toyota’s New Texas Plant
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Lean-based Metrics for Agile CM Environments by by Brad Appleton, Robert Cowham and Steve Berczuk:
I agree measuring individuals is normally not an effective way improve. And “measuring up” can often be valuable. Often a fixation on small process measures can result in improvements that don’t actually improve the end result. But rather than the measure up view, I find looking at outcome measures (to measure overall effectiveness) and process measures (for viewing specific parts of the system “big picture”) the most useful strategy.
The reason for process measures is not to improve those results alone. But those process measures can be selected to measure key processes within the system. Say finding 3 process measures that if we can improve these then this important outcome measure will improve (using PDSA to make sure your prediction is accurate - don’t fall into the trap of focusing on improving that measure even after the data shows it does not result in the desired improvement to the overall results that was predicted).
Also, process measures are helpful in serving as indicators that something is going wrong (or potentially going better than normal). Process measures will change quickly (good ones can be close to real time) thus facilitate immediate remedies and immediate examination of what lead to the problem to aid in avoiding that condition in the future.
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The Scott County Way by Jillian Ogawa:
Center for Quality People and Organizations:
Great. The Education area does require special care but management improvement concepts can work very well in education. David Langford has done some great work in this area as has Alfie Kohn. They are not focused on the Toyota Way but their principles and lean thinking go together well and there expertise in the education area is very important.
via: Scott County Schools Trying Out the Toyota Way
Related: K-12 (kindergarten though high school) improvement resources - articles on quality education - posts on Toyota management methods - quality learning books
Related: New Toyota CEO’s Views - Why Toyota Is Afraid Of Being Number One - Interview with Toyota President - Could Toyota Fix GM - TPS - Take 2
Here is an excellent article from 1999: Transformation and Redesign at the White House Communications Agency (WHCA) (pdf link) by March Laree Jacques
The article is informative and interesting, enjoy. A couple years after this article I I went to work for Gerald Suarez at the White House Military Office (WHMO). WHCA is one of seven operational units of WHMO, others include: Air Force One, Camp David and the White House Medical Unit.
See more management improvement articles including in the Curious Cat Management Improvement Library.
Related: articles and podcasts by Russel Ackoff - Deming on Management - Deming related blog posts - Public Sector Continuous Improvement Site
via NY Times Magazine on Toyota, a very good article: From 0 to 60 to World Domination
I don’t think so, that is an example of their medium term thinking. Personal Robot Aids, biotechnology, housing and environmental development - that is long term thinking. More on Non-Automotive Toyota.
Exactly, they have a system of management. Related: Systemic Thinking - Excessive CEO Pay - Lean is Harmony - Purpose of an Organization - Ackoff, Idealized Design and Bell Labs
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