Category Archives: Toyota Production System (TPS)

Jim Press, Toyota N. American President, Moves to Chrysler

Posted on September 6, 2007 by John Hunter

Jim Press leaves Toyota to join Chrysler. I am surprised. I would imagine he is getting a huge amount of money. And I would guess it will encourage those that think you have to massively overpay executives or lose them to companies that will overpay them. I don’t think it is wise to pay huge sums to executives. If that means you lose some, fine, continue to manage your system well and things will still work out fine for you. … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | 1 Comment

Constant Change and Growth

Posted on August 29, 2007 by John Hunter

The Toyota Secret: Constant Change And Growth by Norman Bodek the chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation. He said, “Failure to change is a vice! I want everyone at Toyota to change and at least do not be an obstacle for someone else who wants to change.” … Every day the manager should look around the company, take videos and still pictures, and challenge people to grow, to eliminate non-value adding wastes, to use their brains to identify and solve problems, … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Psychology, Quality tools, Toyota Production System (TPS) | 2 Comments

Deming Institute Annual Conference: Oct 2007

Posted on August 20, 2007 by John Hunter

Learn how to do your work better, faster, and for less cost, plus find more time to plan your future and develop balance in your life – Attend The W. Edwards Deming Institute Fall Conference. Gain new insights to: * Reduce product and service variation * Enhance job satisfaction * Redesign organizations as a system * Appreciate the thinking behind the Toyota Production System * Discover the role of psychology in continual improvement * Understand trends in improving healthcare Speakers … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Deming, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS)

Data Based Blathering

Posted on August 17, 2007 by John Hunter

Ok, this is one of those posts you might want to ignore or you might enjoy. Before blogs there is little chance this would reach you. But I am tired of seeing the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) promoted as if it were some encouragement for better management when all it seems to do to me is encourage superficial, non data based claims. And since it my blog I can rant if I feel like it. ACSI: Flat Customer Satisfaction … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Economics, Google, Toyota Production System (TPS) | 3 Comments

Workplace Management by Taiichi Ohno

Posted on August 8, 2007 by John Hunter

Workplace Management by Taiichi Ohno is an excellent management book. Taiichi Ohno is known as the father of the Toyota Production System (TPS), also called lean manufacturing. He dictated the text to the Japan Management Association (in a series of interviews in 1982), which gives the book a sense of listening to him talk about the ideas. I found the conversational tone made it very easy to read and reminiscent of Dr. Deming’s tone in many places. Ohno focused a … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Systems thinking, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Toyota Reports Best Quarter Ever

Posted on August 3, 2007 by John Hunter

Toyota Reports Best Quarter Ever Despite concerns in the industry about sluggish auto sales in the U.S. and Japan, Toyota Motor Corp. got help from a weak yen and cost cuts in its earnings announced Friday for its first fiscal quarter. Japan’s biggest automaker posted a 32.3 percent jump in profit to 491.54 billion yen ($4.1 billion) for the April-June quarter. One quarter doesn’t mean much but this is just the continuation of a long term trend. Posts on Toyota’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Toyota Production System (TPS) | 2 Comments

New Articles on Toyota Management

Posted on July 8, 2007 by John Hunter

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: Pick up the latest issue of Harvard Business Review (July/August double issue) for a real treat: a fantastic interview with Toyota President Katsuaki Watanabe. This is a ground-breaking piece of journalism and … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Manufacturing, Toyota Production System (TPS) | 2 Comments

Health Care the Toyota Way

Posted on July 6, 2007 by John Hunter

Clare Crawford-Mason produced the 1980 NBC news white paper on W. Edwards Deming that sparked a movement to improve management. She produced the Deming library tapes to help reach those taking steps to improve management and looking for more help. Last year she teamed up with Lloyd Dobbins on a new documentary – Good News – How Hospitals Heal Themselves. Better Questions, Wiser Answers by Clare Crawford-Mason For example, doctors and nurses from SSM Health Care, a Midwest system, with … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Health care, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS)

No Excessive Senior Executive Pay at Toyota

Posted on June 23, 2007 by John Hunter

Toyota Boosts Executives’ Bonuses on Record Earnings (link broken by Bloomberg has been removed – why can’t companies with huge IT budgets follow even basic web usability rules like not breaking urls?): Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s biggest automaker by market value, will increase the total amount of executives’ bonuses by 33 percent for the year ended in March after the company posted record earnings. The automaker will pay a total of 970.5 million yen ($7.8 million) in bonuses to … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Psychology, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Bad Management Results in Layoffs

Posted on June 3, 2007 by John Hunter

In response to Is Laying People off Really Anti-Lean? [the broken link was removed]: Let’s say you, a Lean enthusiast, are named CEO of a mid sized manufacturing company. Let’s also assume your market has turned down and the constraint is clearly the market. Let’s also assume you need to improve operating income above all else. The final assumption is the company you inherited is not even good at mass production. They just stink at everything. If you come into … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Popular, quote, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , | 18 Comments

Learn From Success and Failure

Posted on May 5, 2007 by John Hunter

Toyota’s Win That Wasn’t, an interview with, Matthew E. May, author of The Elegant Solution: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation: Toyota had a goal of 15% of the U.S. market by 2010. They’ve exceeded that number three years earlier than anticipated. The assumptions didn’t include the Detroit implosion. I know that hansei–the Japanese word for reflection–is being conducted to better understand what happened. At Toyota, exceeding an expectation often receives the same treatment as missing an objective. There’s a need … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | 1 Comment

Toyota, Lean, Consultants…

Posted on May 3, 2007 by John Hunter

Toyota’s success pleases proponents of ‘lean’ The publicity about Toyota becoming No. 1 will create another burst of energy to lean, even though a survey by management consulting firm Bain shows that just 19% of companies that have tried it are happy with the results, says Mark Gottfredson, Bain’s head of performance improvement. More evidence that lean works will result in interest in lean – that seems true. And then those that have an interest will be disappointed in their … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Six sigma, Toyota Production System (TPS)

Womack: Toyota Now and the Risks They Face

Posted on April 27, 2007 by John Hunter

Why Toyota Won and How Toyota Can Lose by James Womack Toyota’s great risk, the way it can lose, is that its new managers and the managers in its new suppliers will revert to the old, mass-production mentality of the companies or schools they have come from. If this happens, Toyota’s management performance will regress toward the mean. Instead of moving the whole world to embrace lean management, Toyota will become just another company. And that will be a tragic … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Lean thinking, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | 2 Comments

Toyota to Name Press as a Director

Posted on April 11, 2007 by John Hunter

Toyota to name first foreign director [the broken link was removed]: Toyota Motor Corp., seeking to add an international flavor to its management, will appoint a foreign national to its board of directors for the first time, sources said Tuesday. … The promotion of Press, 60, who also serves as Toyota’s managing officer, will be voted on at a shareholders meeting in June, the sources said. … But currently, all 25 board members of the parent company are Japanese. Only … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged

The Triumph of Lean Production

Posted on April 10, 2007 by John Hunter

The triumph of lean production by Steve Schifferes Laura pulls a cord, stopping the production line – and prompting her five fellow workers on trim line three to crowd round. They soon see why it is not screwed in properly and fix the problem. “I don’t like to let something like that go,” she says. “That’s really important for people who buy our cars.” Workers at the Toyota plant in Georgetown, Kentucky, pull the cord 2,000 times a week – … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Manufacturing, Toyota Production System (TPS)

The Georgetown Kentucky Way

Posted on February 27, 2007 by John Hunter

The Scott County Way [the broken link was removed] by Jillian Ogawa: It seemed only natural that Toyota’s corporate culture would influence the local schools, said Superintendent Dallas Blankenship. He estimated that one in three students in the school district have one or more parents that work for either Toyota or a Toyota supplier. The school district has had several partnership programs with Toyota in Georgetown. “Simply over time, we learned a lot of practices that have helped us to … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Management Articles, Public Sector, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , ,