This is How The Toyota Production System Creates Operational Excellence
Long Term Thinking at the Expense of Short Term Thinking
The Toyota Production System Operational Excellence relies on long-term thinking, which is important because the future is long-term. Long-term thinking is a challenge for companies that focus on quarterly reporting however, companies that do long-term thinking seemed to mostly make short-term goals also. I’m thinking of Apple Computer which spends its effort looking far into the future while also simultaneously accomplishing short-term goals. Whether you are an insurance company, a manufacturer of automobiles, or a government it is always advantageous to look into the future. The funny thing about long-term thinking is that it leads to achieving short-term goals.
Have a Measure of Performance – Manage by Metrics
Metrics give you the pulse of your system. Value Streams have built-in metrics around performance and quality.
- Time Through Value Stream: Value Stream Lead Time (VSLT)
- Time Through Process: Process Cycle Time (PCT)
- Process Value-Add Time (PVAT)
- Quality Metric: Rolled Throughput Yield (RTY)
- Customer Demand in Periodic Time: Takt Time
- Product or Service Delivery in Periodic Time: Value Stream Production Rate (VSPR)
- Plant Floor Space Dedicated for Defect Pull-Off Space (DPOS)
- Value Stream Inventory (VSI)
Map Value Streams, Profound Knowledge of Every Process
W. Edwards Deming says that business leaders do not have Profound Knowledge of their processes. The Toyota Production System Operational Excellence requires that you have Profound Knowledge of every process. You not only have Profound Knowledge of every process but you also have Profound Knowledge of every Value Stream. A Value Stream is the aggregation of performance, cost, and quality of every process between customer order and customer delivery. It transcends departments, focuses on the value delivered, and is the only way to determine which process to improve that improves Value Stream performance.
Pull When Possible, Not Push
Pull requires that the downstream process requests a product or service when it is ready. This leads to:
- Increased process performance,
- Decreased transportation time between processes,
- Ridding the System of overproduction,
- Decrease overall cost, and
- Decreased the cost of excess inventory.
Theoretically, a pull is introduced when a customer makes an order.
On the other hand, Push is when each department goes as fast as possible, regardless of whether the downstream department is ready or not. Push creates inefficiencies in overproduction, transportation, and inventory build-up. And it is slower than Pull.
Strive for Continuous Flow to Bring Problems into View
The best situation is Flow. This is when the upstream process finishes, the downstream process just becomes ready for the product or service. This is the best situation. It means that processes are balanced. It should a goal of any system.
Use Continuous Improvement Based on Best Practices with a Goal of Perfection
Constantly Improve in the direction of a business-defined vision or challenge. The Constant Improvement rate is at about 1 idea per person per month. A Vision goal could be that all non-value-adding activities be removed or process velocity is always improving. A goal might be to improve a process’s performance by 25% within two years. This is a key to The Toyota Production System Operational Excellence.
andon Stop to Fix Problems Right – Leads to Constant Defect Removal
Every business deals with defects. There are multiple defect categories that exceed the scope of this page. However, one category is whether it is buried or not. An example of a buried defect may be an out-of-round ball bearing in a lawnmower or a defectively produced chip in a computer. It might also be a poor fit for a car seat. The major point here is that defects are discovered most quickly by process operators. If a process operator detects a problem then it is highly likely that if the process operator does not take action, then the defect would become buried. It is important to avoid this by stopping whenever you detect a defect, finding the source of the defect, and repairing the defective activity, before continuing. The Toyota Production System Operational Excellence company still incurs 800 stops to their assembly line every year.
Constant Defect Removal has a contentious relationship with Continuously Improving Best Practices. Positive change is critical for system improvement but, as with all change, it will introduce problems. Measure defects by assembly line stoppages. There is a happy medium between change metrics and defect introduction metrics.
Standardize all Processes on their Best Practices
The Toyota Production System Operational Excellence Best Practices should always be a moving target. Standardize on your current Best Practice Processes but always make an effort to improve those Standardized Best Practices. When everybody is operating on Best Practices then you know your system is healthy.
Level Out the Workload
Leveling the workload is important whether or not you run with Pull technology. In a Pull system, there are technologies that level out the load so that the system will continuously flow most optimally. Alternatively, a Push system is designed to manage an uneven load. You pay for that Push system’s inefficiencies in excess inventory and other ways.
Respect Your Suppliers by Challenging and Supporting Them
Since Suppliers support your organization with products or services, they need to operate at the same performance levels you require for internal operations. If their products or service quality exceeds your operational requirements, then there is no problem. If they don’t, there could be a big problem, and it’s your problem. Because it’s your problem it’s your responsibility to work with your Suppliers and support their effort to meet your requirements. You have done what’s needed in your organization to achieve excellence, and use that same expertise to support Suppliers in their organizations.
Full Guaranteed Employment
Full employment has a risk. If your operations experience excessive cost overruns sometimes it’s just easiest to lay off people. That is the risk, and it is a risk to management. An anomaly occurs here because poor management may lead to layoffs. If management was not visionary enough, or operationally efficient enough to not run the business in such a poor manner, shouldn’t management be laid off also?
There are some big advantages of Full Guaranteed Employment. One is hiring practice. Instead of hiring one person over another because they have more experience in an area, higher the more intelligent person because they will learn more with experience in multiple areas. Two, if you are a hotshot and a new high-risk project shows up, your intellectual desire may be to go there. If however, you are very intelligent, without Full Employment backing you up, you are going to look for a safe project. How do you want your employees distributed throughout your company?
Standardize, Document, and Display all Process Activities
I heard a person make the comment, that in any company, anyone who operates a process, is the expert on that process. Since that person is the expert on the process they should also standardize, document, and display the process and then, personally follow the process. This not only defines the Best Practice but also makes sure the Best Practice is thought through. Once you have a best practice, be proud of it and display it for all to see. In some industries, it allows an audit of the process by anybody walking by.
Use Consensus to Solve Problems, Implement Rapidly
Problems will always occur. The important thing is how you reply to them. This best practice problem resolution philosophy requires a consensus opinion on how to solve the problem and then produces rapid action to actually solve the problem.
Develop Exceptional People That Follow Your Philosophy
The biggest challenge can be finding exceptional people. Continuous Improvement is so important that a lack of its capability can decrease business expansion. Since a no-layoff policy, like the one HP, had before Carly Fiorina took over, attracts and trains exceptional people, they learn to follow the business philosophy.
Minimize Assembly Workers
The Toyota Production System Operational Excellence will minimize the number of your Process Operators, which then gives you some valuable information. It demonstrates to you the absolute minimum number of people to operate your system. It gives you a good idea of your minimal operational costs. While you operate with the minimum number of workers, you need to create individuals in your system that can roplace functionality for when a worker is absent. That is part of the whole operational system.
Focus on Value Provided
If you are not focusing on the value you are adding, then what are you focusing on? Almost every process is designed to add value. Whether you are a hospital, insurance company, manufacturer, or government agency, the focus should be on the value provided to your customers. That’s what you improve for a competitive advantage.
In Conclusion
Philosophy, Process, People & Partners, and Problem Solving are the categories that all the above discussion points fall under. The Toyota Production System Operational Excellence is critical to doing it right. There is a company that is an expert at this and has a system based on the previous operational points. That system is, of course, The Toyota Production System.
Toyota is not perfect and neither is its Production System. But they have methodologies in place that strive for perfection. If your Operational Excellence system does not meet the above requirements, then it is lacking. The tools of the Toyota Production System apply to any system. Use it today.
Lean Six Sigma and the Toyota Production System generate Operational Excellence. For Lean Six Sigma go here: