Good day, dear blog readers! Today I will reveal the secret of the success of the Toyota Corporation, or, as they now call it, the 14 principles of the Toyota Way. This is a completely different philosophy, way of thinking and style of doing business. She differs from others in that she values ​​her employees and never stops there, striving for perfection. Therefore, it has had tremendous success, while even the weakest employee over time becomes a highly qualified personnel, motivated for achievements and development.

If you adopt some methods, you will be able to establish an effective workflow, especially if it is related to production.

Review of principles

It is recommended to re-read them carefully 5 times, with a notebook in which you will write down emerging ideas and basic work strategies. I will briefly describe them, more detailed information you can get by reading the book Jeffrey Liker's 14 Principles of the Tao of Toyota. So, each of them belongs to a specific category:

Long term philosophy

1.Make management decisions taking into account the long term

Even if it hurts short-term financial goals. You need to find your place in the company and strive to promote it. As in life, first of all, you should understand the meaning of your purpose, and the main goal should be improvement and development, and only then profit. You should also be sure to plan and set goals, practicing a strategic approach, and when necessary, a systematic one.

To create, create something that will be valuable for clients and society itself, therefore it is necessary to direct all efforts and resources specifically to the implementation of this task.

Learn to take responsibility for your actions, don’t go with the flow, but manage and decide what exactly your every day will be like. Believe in yourself and your strength.

The right process produces the right results

2. Continuous flow process helps identify problems

It is necessary to restructure production so that it does not stand in one place, that is, to eliminate pauses.

In order to instantly detect difficulties, it is necessary to establish contact and communication between people and the processes themselves, then there will be no failures in the transfer of information.

This continuous flow must be clear to everyone, only then will it help people improve.

3.Use a pull system to avoid overproduction

Business is effective when the client receives exactly what he ordered, on time and in the required volume.

Work in progress should be kept to a minimum, as should inventory storage. They should be replenished only when necessary, at the request of the client, in order to avoid unnecessary accumulation and the need to urgently sell the goods later.

Pay attention to consumer demand, which may change and fluctuate, and analyze why this happens. It is a huge mistake when the emphasis is placed not on the client’s keen interest, but on computer calculations, tables and graphs.

4. Distribute the amount of work evenly: work like a tortoise, not a hare

If you distribute the load evenly, you will eliminate such unpleasant moments as the effect of professional burnout or equipment breakdown. It is important to smooth out the unevenness of the schedule, and even better, to prevent it from fluctuating. Then you will eliminate such moments in production as emergency or downtime, which can reduce consumer interest in your product. Unfortunately, this is sometimes not understood by companies with mass production, where you can often notice staff turnover and not quality goods. After all, you know the saying: “The slower you go, the further you will go?”

5. Stop production to solve problems

And make it part of the production culture if quality requires it.

Apply in your activities various methods to ensure the quality of the product.

The organization must create a support system that can quickly resolve difficulties and have the right to make adjustments.

The equipment must independently identify problems and notify the team about its presence. Ideal inclusion in activities modern cars that possess elements of human intelligence.

To increase productivity and get a quality product the first time, you should apply the principle of stopping and slowing down in your activities.

6.Standard tasks - the basis

The basis for continuous improvement and delegation of authority to employees.

Flow and Pull is the ability to apply stable methods of work that provide predictability, resulting in coherence and results being expected and uniform.

7.Use visual control

To ensure that no difficulty goes unnoticed. For effective management and quality work, you should use simple ways, and even better, visual ones to point out errors and deviations from the required standard.

If the computer is a distraction, you should eliminate it.

8.Use only reliable, proven technology

Most often, it is worth performing some tasks manually, since modern technologies should help people, not replace them. Therefore, refrain from introducing additional equipment.

Use familiar methods because new technologies can sometimes threaten the entire flow and are very difficult to standardize.

If you are still going to use new technologies, first conduct tests in real conditions.

Eliminate or modify technology that does not fit into the overall company culture and philosophy to avoid instability and unreliability.

But completely abandon modern technologies It’s not worth it, especially at times when it is necessary to invent new options that will help cope with difficulties. And encourage workers to think creatively.

Add value to the organization by developing your employees and partners

9. Develop leaders

Those who thoroughly know their business, profess the company’s philosophy and can teach this to others. It is much easier to cultivate leaders yourself than to search for and buy them.

A leader must have skills effective communication, especially with clients. As practice shows, if he knows his responsibilities perfectly, then he can safely convey the meaning and philosophy of the corporation. By example, motivating others to comply with the laws and perform assigned tasks efficiently.

10. Raise extraordinary people and form teams

They must adhere to the company's philosophy. The values ​​and beliefs of the corporation must be aimed at people who can accept and profess them, passing on experience to other companies. Then your team will be strong and stable.

Work hard to strengthen your work culture.

Train exceptional people to act according to corporate ethics and rules.

Create groups of different functionality to improve quality and also solve complex technical problems, thus improving the flow itself.

Everyone must be able to work in a team. This is a very important requirement when selecting personnel - to be able to be in a team, implementing common goal. When failures occur, teach this skill using team-building techniques and exercises.

11. Respect your partners and suppliers

Give them difficult tasks and help them improve. Partners and suppliers are equal participants in the process, so treat them with respect.

Create conditions for your partners that will stimulate their development and search for new methods of work. If you set them tasks that are too difficult, help them complete them, then they will feel that you are valuable to you, which will only strengthen your business relationship.

Solving Fundamental Problems Drives Lifelong Learning

12.To understand the situation, you need to see everything with your own eyes

The fundamentals of management of the leading Toyota company are that the manager or leader is obliged to see the obstacle with his own eyes, independently verify and verify the data. A big mistake is shifting responsibility, and especially when, without testing on their own, the leader makes a decision based on the words of employees or some computer indicators.

Rule number one - reasoning should be based only on the data that you received and verified yourself. And this rule applies even to the top management of the corporation, who must directly see the difficulties that have arisen with their own eyes, and only then identify the necessary ways to eliminate them and give orders for action.

13. Take your time to decide

Based on consensus, after weighing everything possible options; when implementing it, do not hesitate. Be sure to weigh the pros and cons, and only then choose a course of action. If you decide what needs to be done and in which direction to move, proceed immediately, but remember to be careful.

Nemawashi is a process in which absolutely all employees participate in order to discuss the obstacles that have arisen and come up with ways to help cope with them. Then it becomes possible to come to one opinion after considering many different options. It is very capacious and lengthy, but definitely worth it, since such a large-scale method of finding a solution to a problem helps you see many other possible nuances and possibilities.

Employees will feel recognized, because the opinion of absolutely each of them is valuable. Which, again, will affect cohesion and the desire to promote the philosophy of your organization.

14.Become a learning structure

Through relentless self-reflection and continuous improvement.

Once you feel that you have achieved stability, start using continuous improvement tools. As soon as the reason for unprofitable or ineffective work is determined, you should immediately begin to eliminate it.

Organize your organization’s activities so that you don’t need supplies, then you can save on time and resources. As a result, it is easy to identify the difficulties that will be obvious in this case.

Treating employees with respect, as I already said, will reduce staff turnover. And accordingly, we will reach an important goal - preserving the accumulated experience and cultivating valuable employees, professionals in their field, who over time will be able to train newcomers and pass on the fundamentals and rules of the corporation. The organization's knowledge base should be carefully guarded.

Therefore, it will greatly help to gradually advance in your career so that everyone has the opportunity to grow and develop. Then aggression will not accumulate, as a result of which a clear desire to quit appears.

Upon completion of the work, you should definitely analyze it, honestly and openly stating the advantages and disadvantages. Then there will be trust in your organization, because initially employees, and then clients, will be confident that you will not hide unfavorable information.

Required upon successful correction of some kind difficult situation it is necessary to protect the corporation in the future by coming up with measures to prevent the same mistake from happening again. Experience must be accumulated in order to advance, so it should be learned the first time.

Conclusion

Be inspired by the experience of one of the world's leading corporations, apply its rules corporate code in your practice to create an economic miracle and grow your organization by giving the consumer valuable and quality product. By the way, the book recommended for reading is very informative, but not the only one devoted to this topic, you can also see "Toyota Production System" by Taiichi Ohno And Lean Manufacturing by Womack and Jones.

I recommend reading this article: “That’s all for today, dear readers! Subscribe to updates, there is still a lot of interesting news ahead of us from the world of self-development and personal growth. Bye bye.

0

One of the criteria for the success of an organization is the use of a suitable management concept. Today, the Russian management model is extremely ineffective, the reasons for this are: ineffective management, irrational planning, weak product quality control, and the absence of a specific philosophy in production.

The question arises: what should be the concept of effective management in Russia? Classical management theories turn out to be ineffective in practice; moreover, they come into conflict with the Russian mentality and the idea of ​​organizing the labor process. Absolutely required new approach to production management. The author is convinced that the components of the necessary management model should be looked for in Japan.

The relevance of research on a given topic can hardly be overestimated, since it is determined by a number of reasons, including the need to introduce new management concepts into the management system Russian companies, the growing need for modernization and rationalization of domestic production based on changes in the personnel management model and the use of innovative approaches in the field of product quality control.

The scientific novelty of the study lies in the uniqueness of the analysis of Toyota's management concepts, as a result of which milestones for the creation of a new Russian management model were identified.

The problem of the research is that, with many classical management theories, a concept has not yet been identified that would help resolve the issues raised related to the effectiveness of the functioning of management models in Russia.

Object this study are management concepts in Japanese companies. The subject of the study is the production management approaches of the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota Motor Corporation. The methodological basis of the study is the concepts of production management and quality control of the TPS system: “Kaizen”, “Kanban”, “Chaku-chaku”, “Just-in-time”, “Genchi Genbutsu”; and Geert Hofstede's research in sociology.

The main goal of the study is to study the Toyota management model, as well as to find ways to introduce the concepts used into the management structure of Russian companies. The main task research is the formation of a working management concept for Russian business environment based on the Toyota Production System control system.

During the study, the following hypotheses were identified that require verification based on the analysis of the identified topic: in Russia it is impossible to apply Japanese management concepts due to the differentiation of the cultural characteristics of society; it is possible to use individual elements of the lean production system as the basis for a new domestic management model.

The result of the study is a formed management concept for use in Russia, as well as the sequence of implementation in the production process. The conclusion of the study is confirmation of the possibility of introducing and operating TPS elements in Russia.

Basic principles of the theory of lean production

Speaking about the Toyota production system, it should be noted that it is based on lean manufacturing concept(lean production). Developed by Taiichi Ohno, the lean system was designed to optimize production and improve product quality by eliminating all kinds of waste. But what is meant by the word “loss” (Jap. muda)? Toyota theorists identify seven types of waste: overproduction, wasted time, unnecessary transportation, excessive processing, excess raw materials, unnecessary movements, and defects.

Jeffrey Liker noted that it is not enough to optimize the production process, you need to create a certain philosophy at the enterprise, which would become a guiding vector for employees and encourage continuous improvement of work skills. In the Toyota Production System, a similar philosophy was built on the basis of leveling the overall production flow by creating a value-based understanding of production among employees. This approach allowed us to save valuable time: there was no need to go deep into individual explanations to each employee about responsibility and the need to work “conscientiously.” A unified idea of ​​the production cycle was formed.

Successful implementation of the philosophy in production will contribute to the implementation of one of the most important components of the lean manufacturing system - the desire for continuous improvement. Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, Kevalkumar Vyas, noted in his report that success lies in how successfully one can implement a certain methodology in production, which would allow the concept of a step-by-step approach to be followed. The first step in creating a seamless production flow is to create a consistent process that is focused on meeting customer needs. The full cycle of continuous production improvement at Toyota can be represented in the form of a diagram (Fig. 1)

Fig. 1 Toyota's continuous improvement cycle

The following fundamental principles are identified that make it possible to implement the concept of lean production in an enterprise: the “just-in-time” system, the “kanban” system and the “Genchi Genbutsu” principle. We are inclined to believe that these bases of the Toyota production system can be successfully used as the basis for a future management concept for the Russian business environment.

Using a just-in-time system eliminates what Taiichi Ohno believes is the most important of the seven wastes—overproduction—by precisely calibrating the system for delivering the necessary production elements directly to the point of use. The use of the “kanban” system makes it possible to achieve the successful implementation of the “just-in-time” concept, namely, to create a unified information system for tracking and regulating the quantity of production in production in real time.

Automation allows for more successful product quality control, as well as identifying defects in the early stages of production, before the product is released.

The principle of “Genchi Genbutsu” states that in order to solve a problem in production, it is necessary, firstly, to directly participate in the production process, and secondly, to proceed from the “origins” of the problem and draw conclusions based on facts, and not on speculation or opinions .

We are not talking about the lean production system as a set of principles and concepts aimed at regulating individual elements of production. Basic principles will optimize production, but it is important that each employee understands the significance of his contribution to the production process. Required a certain philosophy production. Its implementation is priority for corporate executives. To do this, we will have to borrow the listed elements, which, in our opinion, are lacking in the domestic production management system.

According to the official website of the company, Toyota Motor Corporation at the end of December 2012 operated at 52 foreign manufacturing subsidiaries in 27 countries. Often, we ourselves create barriers in our heads, rejecting the most important principles of management that are presented to us by foreign theorists who study management as a science. “The devastation is not in the entrance, but in the minds,” and it is the approach to introducing new management concepts into the rigid structure of Russian companies that needs to be changed, taking into account the long-term impact of the new principles on personnel. We will try to streamline all the necessary, in our opinion, principles of lean production and create a model of enterprise management, taking into account the peculiarities of the mentality of the Russian people.

Things to consider

We are aimed at creating an effectively working management concept taking into account the peculiarities of the Russian mentality. It was determined that the most important component of the new management model would be the presence of a specific production philosophy. But how to create a philosophy and successfully implement it in production if, due to historical factors, specific views on the most important aspects have formed in Russia? labor activity? It is necessary to analyze individual events from the history of Russia that influenced the formation of the mentality of the Russian people.

Russians have a special attitude towards work. Serfdom had a significant impact on the concept of the worker's perception of who he was working for: himself or the landowner. The life of a peasant could be divided into two parts: working for the landowner and working for himself. The peasant was well aware that if he concentrated all his efforts to work for the landowner, he would not be able to work well for himself. Because of this, the separation of the concepts of “working for yourself” and “working for someone else” has taken root in the minds of Russians. The above arguments allow us to formulate a conclusion regarding the quality of employees’ work modern company: the quality of work will depend entirely on how the employee perceives his work. It is necessary to create a differentiated system of perception of the values ​​of the labor process. In other words, it is extremely important that each employee interprets the significance of the work process in his own way, focusing on what exactly he considers important for himself. Required flexible system approaches to the perception of values, but, at the same time, the structure of values ​​should be defined and fixed as much as possible.

Russians perceive norms, rules, and laws in a special way, interpreting various kinds of instructions in their own way with the phrase: not everything that is prescribed must be followed. The state is perceived as an extremely ineffective institution, as a result of which we can observe disdain for legislative bodies. A certain concept of understanding the norm is emerging from the point of view of the rules established by management at the enterprise. It is impossible to instantly correct such a deeply rooted stereotype of prescriptions. Monitoring compliance with production regulations is required. The employee must understand that failure to comply with regulations will result in negative sanctions. It is necessary to convey to every employee the fact that violation of the standards adopted by management is unacceptable and undermines the stable operation of the entire company. There will begin to be a consistent realization that as a result of an individual violating the rules, all employees without exception who regularly perform their duties in accordance with the regulatory framework will come under attack.

It is worth mentioning that Russia is experiencing one of the most high performance“distance from power” according to the model of the Dutch sociologist Geert Hofstede. (Fig. 2) Due to a number of historical reasons, the concept of strong differentiation of society was formed in Russia. Power distance indicators in Russia are much higher (1.7 times) than in Japan. The degree of perception of the fact of uneven distribution of power within domestic companies is high, and it is not customary for an employee to take the initiative. It is worth moving away from such a concept. It is necessary to change the idea of ​​the company hierarchy in favor of the employee, in order to extract necessary information concerning aspects of the production process. Jeffrey Liker in his book singled out a particularly significant, in his opinion, category of production losses: unrealized creative potential employees; with insufficient attention to this species losses will be the loss of time, ideas, skills, opportunities for improvement and gain of experience due to inattention to employees, whom managers have no time to listen to. It is important to establish normatively weekly meetings with the right to speak out on topics of concern to employees. All employees should point out what problems they believe exist. Depends on the information strategic advantage company, its stable production. It is important that employees understand this.

As for the indices of individualism at the enterprise and uncertainty avoidance by employees, it can be noted that their values ​​are approximately at the same level. Consequently, aspects of the new management model for Russia from the perspective of the two mentioned criteria will be taken into account using the provisions of lean production, since the characteristics of these criteria in Russia and Japan do not differ much.

Fig. 2 Comparison of cultural characteristics of Russia and Japan

It should be noted that the masculinity index of employees in Russia is extremely low compared to the indicators of employees of Japanese corporations (2.6 times less). Russians are not aimed at achieving results “at any cost,” but it is worth mentioning the fact that, due to historical reasons, a special concept of the Russian mentality has been formed, which sets a person up to work with full dedication. The degree of dedication depends on what or who the employee believes in at the moment. In the process of creating a production philosophy, it is necessary to take into account a motivation system for employees, which will act as a priority.

Concluding the consideration of factors influencing the functioning of management concepts, we would like to turn to the section “Future orientation”. (Fig. 2) Unfortunately, the Geert Hofstede Center did not provide data for Russia regarding this part of the diagram. Of course, we cannot help but notice the desire of our Japanese colleagues to focus production on long term, even if this has a detrimental effect on short-term financial plans. The Russians, due to extreme military mobilization throughout their history, have not been able to understand the full depth of the benefits of long-term planning. We are convinced that systematically prioritizing long-term perspectives in the company will help employees adapt to such an unusual concept of thinking.

Formulating a working concept

In our opinion, a sufficient amount of data was collected to formulate the main provisions of a new management concept that could work in Russia, taking into account the peculiarities of the Russian mentality. The main provisions of the concept are presented in the form of a diagram. (Fig. 3)

Rice. 3 Hierarchy of the main provisions of management concepts

The new management concept should contain:

• A certain philosophy production process, referring to which employees could provide themselves with an account of why they are engaged in this particular type production activities and what is their significance in the global process of enterprise functioning. The right philosophy will also help to ensure that employees are extremely focused on production and adhere to the principles of the Just-in-Time concept.

• Loss Elimination System in production. This requires using effective technologies at the enterprise, autonomation of the process, adherence to the sequence of work, equal distribution of responsibilities between employees, implementation of a system of continuous quality control and identification of deficiencies in the early stages of the production process (Dzioka), tracking the volume of resources used and control of the involved capacities to avoid overproduction. It is necessary to create a single information system, which would reflect the state of individual production processes in real time (Kanban).

• The structure of interpersonal relationships among employees. The manager must approach the issue of forming a team with special responsibility, since the presence of a cohesive team in production will create a favorable atmosphere for the effective work of employees. Activities aimed at bringing the upper echelons of management closer to the workers are mandatory. We are inclined to believe that such measures will lead to openness of employees towards managers, which will have a positive impact on the system of information exchange between executive and management elements of production.

• The concept of continuous improvement. Internships and courses aimed at improving the skills of employees are especially important. Investing cash into various additional programs vocational education, the employer thereby invests in its production and acts from a long-term perspective. In addition, it is necessary that employees have the opportunity to learn during production, absorbing the intricacies of the production process (Kaizen). We believe that on-the-job training is the most effective and efficient method of providing new job skills to company employees.

Conclusion

In the course of this study, we analyzed Toyota's lean production management approaches and, on their basis, formed a management model taking into account the peculiarities of the Russian mentality. We managed to refute one of the hypotheses, which states that it is impossible to use Japanese management concepts in Russia due to cultural characteristics Russian society. We took into account the necessary aspects of mentality and formulated recommendations for successful implementation new system production management. Moreover, the second hypothesis we posed was confirmed: individual control elements of the Japanese “lean-production” system successfully formed the basis of a new management system for the Russian environment. The universality of Toyota's approaches to production was revealed. We recommend introducing the formulated management concepts into the production cycle gradually, observing the order of the structural elements of the system. The estimated period for the successful implementation of a lean production system at domestic enterprises is 10 years. The conclusion of this study is confirmation of the possibility of applying lean manufacturing concepts in Russia. The practical significance of the research results is due to the possibility of using the formulated concepts in production in order to improve management efficiency. Further research on the topic is planned: analysis of the period of integration of Toyota management models in world practice.

Spear S., Bowen H. K. Decoding the DNA of the Toyota production system // Harvard Business Review. – 1999. – T. 77. – P. 96-108.

Since the founding of Toyota, our core principle has been to benefit society by producing high quality products and services. Doing business based on this principle has shaped the values, beliefs and practices that have enabled us to achieve competitive advantage. The combination of these working methods and value orientations of management represents the Toyota approach.

Fujio Cho, President of Toyota (The Toyota Way, 2001)

THE TOYOTA APPROACH IS MORE THAN TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY

So, you have introduced a kanban system. (Kanban is Japanese for “tag”, “card”, “receipt” or “signal”. This is the name of a tool for managing the flow and production of products in the “pull” system adopted by Toyota.) You have connected an andon, a device for visually monitoring production zone that warns workers about defects, equipment malfunctions or other problems using light, sound and similar signals. Now your workspace looks like a Toyota factory. But gradually everything returns to normal, and work goes on again as before. You call the Toyota Production System consultant, who shakes his head in disapproval. What's the matter?

In fact, the main work of implementing lean manufacturing is just beginning. Your workers have no idea about the work culture behind TPS. They are not ready to work tirelessly to improve the system and engage in self-improvement. The Toyota Tao exists primarily thanks to people who work, communicate with each other, make decisions and develop, improving each other and themselves. If you look at successful Japanese companies that operate under a lean production system, you can immediately see how actively workers make suggestions for improvement. But Toyota's approach doesn't stop there: it encourages, supports and requires everyone to participate. The more I studied TPS and became immersed in the Toyota Way, the more I realized that it is a system that provides people with the tools to continuously improve their work. The Toyota Way is trust in people. This is a kind of culture, and not a set of techniques and methods for improving and increasing efficiency. Reducing inventory and identifying and solving hidden problems is possible only with the help of workers. If they are not responsible enough, do not understand the task at hand, and do not know how to work as a team, downtime and stockpiling will begin. Every day, engineers, skilled workers, quality specialists, suppliers, team leaders and, most importantly, operators are constantly engaged in solving problems, and this allows everyone to learn how to solve them. One Lean tool that teaches teamwork is called 5S (Sort, Organize, Clean, Standardize, Improve; see Chapter 13 for more details). We are talking about a set of measures to eliminate losses that lead to errors, defects and injuries. The most difficult component of 5S is, perhaps, the fifth - “improve” (stimulate, maintain self-discipline. - Approx. scientific editor). This point is the decisive condition for the success of the other four. Maintenance is unthinkable without appropriate education and training, and for workers to comply with operating rules and improve working methods and their workplace, they need to be encouraged. The conditions for success in achieving the goals are the commitment of management to these approaches, appropriate training and production culture. Only then will maintenance and improvement become commonplace for everyone, from shop floor workers to management. This chapter provides a brief overview of the 14 principles that make up the Toyota Way. The principles are grouped into four categories:

1. long-term philosophy;
2. the right process produces the right results (this involves using a range of TPS tools);
3. add value to the organization by developing your employees and partners;
4. Constantly solving fundamental problems stimulates lifelong learning.

The second part of the book is also structured around these four categories, which together represent the four-part model of the Toyota Way presented in Chapter 1. In the next two chapters, I will show how these 14 principles worked in the creation of Lexus and Prius. If you'd like to jump ahead to a detailed look at the 14 principles, you can skip to Chapter 7 right now. However, I strongly recommend that you read what follows first.

BRIEF CHARACTERISTICS OF THE 14 PRINCIPLES OF THE TOYOTA TAO

Section I: Long-Term Philosophy

Principle 1: Accept management decisions with a long-term perspective in mind, even if it is detrimental to short-term financial goals.

• Use systematic and strategic approaches when setting goals, and all operational decisions should be subordinated to this approach. Realize your place in the history of the company and try to take it to a higher level. Work on the organization, improve and rebuild it, moving towards the main goal, which is more important than making a profit. A conceptual understanding of your purpose is the foundation of all other principles.
• Your main task is to create value for the consumer, society and the economy. When assessing any type of activity in a company, consider whether it solves this problem.
• Be responsible. Strive to control your destiny. Believe in your strengths and abilities. Be accountable for what you do, maintain and improve the skills that allow you to produce added value.

Section II. The right process produces the right results

Principle 2: A continuous flow process helps identify problems.

• Reengineer your process to create a continuous flow that effectively adds value. Minimize the amount of time unfinished work sits idle.
• Create a flow of products or information and establish connections between processes and people so that any problem is identified immediately.
• This thread should be part organizational culture, understandable to everyone. This is the key to continuous improvement and development of people.

Principle 3: Use a pull system to avoid overproduction.

• Make sure that the internal consumer who accepts your work gets what he needs in right time and in the right quantity. The basic principle: in a just-in-time system, the stock of products should be replenished only as they are consumed.
• Minimize work in progress and inventory storage. Keep a small number of items in stock and replenish these stocks as customers pick them up.
• Be sensitive to daily fluctuations in consumer demand, which provide more information than computer systems and charts. This will help avoid losses due to the accumulation of excess inventory.

Principle 4. Distribute the workload evenly (heijunka): work like a tortoise, not like a hare.

• Eliminating waste is only one of the three conditions for lean manufacturing success. Eliminating overload of people and equipment and smoothing out uneven production schedules are equally important. This is often not understood in companies that are trying to apply lean principles.
• Work to distribute the load evenly in all processes related to production and service. This is an alternative to alternating rush jobs and downtime, characteristic of mass production.

Principle 5: Make stopping production to solve problems part of the production culture when quality requires it.

• Quality for the consumer determines your value proposition.
• Use all available modern methods quality assurance.
• Create equipment that can independently recognize problems and stop when they are identified. Develop a visual system to notify the team leader and team members that a machine or process requires their attention. Jidoka (machines with elements of human intelligence) is the foundation for “embedding” quality.
• Ensure that the organization has a support system in place to quickly resolve problems and take corrective action.
• The principle of stopping or slowing down the process should ensure that the required quality is obtained “the first time” and become an integral part of the company’s production culture. This will improve process productivity in the long term.

Principle 6. Standard tasks are the basis for continuous improvement and delegation of authority to employees.

• Use stable, repeatable work methods to make results more predictable, improve teamwork, and produce more consistent output. This is the basis of flow and pull.
• Capture the accumulated knowledge about the process, standardizing the best methods at the moment. Do not discourage creative expression aimed at raising the standard; consolidate what you have achieved with a new standard. Then the experience accumulated by one employee can be transferred to the one who replaces him.

Principle 7. Use visual inspection so that no problem goes unnoticed.

• Use simple visual aids to help employees quickly identify where they are meeting the standard and where they have deviated from it.
• You should not use a computer monitor if it distracts the worker from the work area.
• Create simple systems visual control in workplaces that promote flow and pull.
• If possible, reduce the length of reports to one sheet, even when it comes to major financial decisions.

Principle 8: Use only reliable, proven technology.

• Technology is designed to help people, not replace them. It is often worth doing the process manually first before introducing additional hardware.
• New technologies are often unreliable and difficult to standardize, jeopardizing flow. Instead of using untested technology, it is better to use a known, proven process.
• Before entering new technology and equipment, tests should be carried out under real conditions.
• Reject or change technology that conflicts with your culture and may undermine stability, reliability, or predictability.
• Still, encourage your people to keep an eye on new technologies when it comes to finding new ways. Quickly implement proven technologies that have been tested to improve flow.

Section III. Add value to the organization by developing your employees and partners

Principle 9. Develop leaders who thoroughly know their business, profess the company's philosophy and can teach it to others.

• It is better to develop your own leaders than to buy them from outside the company.
• A leader must not only complete the tasks assigned to him and have the skills to communicate with people. He must profess the company's philosophy and set a personal example of how to do business.
• A good leader must know the day-to-day work like the back of his hand, only then can he become a true teacher of the company's philosophy.

Principle 10: Develop exceptional people and build teams that embrace the company's philosophy.

• Create a strong, sustainable work culture with lasting values ​​and beliefs that everyone shares and accepts.
• Train exceptional people and teams to operate with a corporate philosophy that produces exceptional results. Work tirelessly to strengthen your production culture.
• Form cross-functional teams to improve quality, productivity and flow by solving complex technical problems. Arm people with the tools to improve the company.
• Relentlessly train people to work as a team towards a common goal. Everyone should learn to work in a team.

Principle 11: Respect your partners and suppliers, challenge them and help them improve.

• Respect your partners and suppliers, treat them as equal participants in a common cause.
• Create conditions for partners that stimulate their growth and development. Then they will understand that they are valued. Set challenging tasks for them and help them solve them.

Section IV. Constantly solving fundamental problems stimulates lifelong learning

Principle 12. To understand the situation, you need to see everything with your own eyes (genchi genbutsu).

• When solving problems and improving processes, you must see what is happening with your own eyes and personally verify the data, and not theorize by listening to other people or looking at a computer monitor.
• Your thoughts and reasoning should be based on data that you have verified yourself.
• Even representatives of the company's senior management and department heads must see the problem with their own eyes, only then the understanding of the situation will be genuine and not superficial.

Principle 13. Make a decision slowly, based on consensus, after weighing all possible options; when implementing it, do not hesitate (nemawashi).

• Do not make a definitive decision on a course of action until you have weighed all the alternatives. When you have decided where to go, follow the chosen path without delay, but be careful.
• Nemawashi is a process of collaborative discussion of problems and potential solutions in which everyone participates. His task is to collect all the ideas and develop a common opinion on where to move next. Although this process takes quite a lot of time, it helps to carry out a larger search for solutions and prepare conditions for the prompt implementation of the decision made.

Principle 14: Become a learning structure through relentless self-reflection (hansei) and continuous improvement (kaizen).

• Once the process has stabilized, use continuous improvement tools to identify the root causes of inefficiencies and take effective action.
• Create a process that requires almost no inventory. This will help identify wastage of time and resources. When waste is obvious to everyone, it can be eliminated through continuous improvement (kaizen).
• Protect the knowledge base about the organization of your company, prevent staff turnover, monitor the gradual promotion of employees and the preservation of accumulated experience.
• When you complete the main stages and complete the entire work, analyze (hansei) its shortcomings and speak openly about them. Develop measures to prevent the repetition of mistakes.
• Instead of reinventing the wheel when you start new job or when it appears new manager, learn to standardize best practices and methods.

You can use a whole range of TPS tools, but still follow only a few selected principles of the Toyota approach. This way, you may be able to improve your performance for a while, but the results won't last long. But if a company, when implementing TPS, follows all the principles of the Toyota approach, it will definitely achieve sustainable competitive advantages.

When I taught a course on Lean Manufacturing, I often heard the question: “How can I apply TPS in my organization? We do not mass produce cars; we make small batches of customized products" or: "We work in the service industry, so TPS is not for us." Such reasoning suggests that people do not understand the main thing. The essence of lean manufacturing is not to copy Toyota tools designed for a specific production process. Lean manufacturing means developing principles that are specific to your organization and sticking to them, effectively creating added value for customers and society. This way your company can become profitable and competitive. The principles of the Toyota Way represent starting point. Toyota uses them not only on assembly lines for serial production. In the next chapter we will see how some of these principles are applied to the organizations that provide Toyota product development services.

In Fig. 3.2 these losses are represented on a simple time coordinate for the casting, machining and assembly process. In a traditional process cycle, most of the time spent processing material is waste. This diagram will be familiar to anyone who has attended a Lean Manufacturing or TPS workshop, and I won't waste time commenting in detail. From a lean manufacturing perspective, you first need to map the value stream according to the flow of material (information) through the process of interest. To get the full picture, it's best to walk the route yourself. Draw a diagram of this movement and calculate the time and distance, and you get a diagram called a “spaghetti diagram”. Even those who have worked in production most of their lives are amazed at the results obtained. In Fig. Figure 3.2 shows that we are stretching very simple product processes to such an extent that identifying value-adding activities becomes challenging.

Rice. 3.2. Losses when creating added value

I found a striking example of the above while working as a consultant for a company that manufactured steel nuts. The seminar participants - engineers and managers - assured that their companies Lean It won't do anything, the process is too simple. Rolled steel is cut into pieces, holes are punched in them, after which the blanks undergo heat treatment and are placed in boxes. Blanks are processed on automatic machines at a speed of hundreds of nuts per minute. When we looked at the value stream (and therefore at the non-value-added activities), it became clear that the company's employees' claim was simply ridiculous. We started from the receiving area, and every time it seemed that the process was already completed, we had to go around the entire plant again to get to where the next stage of processing was taking place. At one point, the nuts were taken away from the factory for several weeks to be heat treated, since management calculated that contracting for this work would be more profitable than processing the nuts themselves. In the end, it turned out that the process of making nuts was delayed for weeks, or even months. Moreover, most technological operations take a few seconds, with the exception of heat treatment, which is carried out over several hours. We calculated the proportion of time spent creating added value for different types products and received indicators from 0.008% to 2–3%. Everyone's eyes widened! At the same time, the equipment was often idle, the machines were running idle, and deposits of workpieces were piled up around. Some savvy manager decided that it would be cheaper to contract a maintenance contract with another business than to hire full-time people. Thus, when a machine broke down, there was often no one to fix it, let alone perform preventative maintenance. As a result, for the sake of efficiency in one area, the value stream was slowed down and stretched due to work in progress, inventory of finished goods, and time spent identifying problems (defects) that reduce quality. As a result, the company lacked the flexibility to meet changing customer demands.

Process Improvement: Traditional and Lean Approaches

The traditional approach to process improvement focuses primarily on local efficiency - “look at the equipment, at the value-adding activities, and make uptime longer, cycle times shorter, and where possible, replace humans with machines.” As a result, the efficiency of an individual operation increases, but this does not have a tangible impact on the value stream as a whole. It is important to remember that most processes involve very few value-adding activities, and improving just these activities is not critical. When we analyze the process from a lean manufacturing perspective, we see huge reserves that can be used by eliminating waste and eliminating non-value-adding steps.
If we restructure production from the point of view lean thinking, the main potential for improvement is the elimination of a huge number of operations where added value is not created. At the same time, the time spent creating added value is also reduced. This can be seen if you take a process similar to making nuts and create a cell that operates on the principle of flow single products.
In lean manufacturing cell is a collection of people and machines or workplaces, organized and operating in accordance with a sequence of technological operations. Cells are created to ensure the flow of single products (services), which one after another undergo various technological operations, for example welding, assembly, packaging. The speed of such processing is determined by the needs of the consumer, who cannot be kept waiting.
Let's return to the example of the production of nuts. If we set up a cell where operations are carried out in a linear sequence, and we pass one nut or small batches of nuts from one operator to another in a one-piece flow, then what took weeks could be done in a few hours. This example is not unusual. Companies around the world have demonstrated time and time again how one-piece flow can work wonders: increased productivity, improved quality, reduced inventory, freed up space, and shorter lead times. Every time the results exceed all expectations, and every time it seems like a miracle. This is why the one-piece flow cell is the basis of lean manufacturing. It allowed Toyota to eliminate most of its losses across all eight categories.
In practice, the ultimate goal of lean manufacturing is to organize the flow of one-piece products across all types of work, be it design, order taking, or production itself. Everyone who has learned from their own experience what opportunities the philosophy of lean manufacturing opens up becomes its ardent adherents and strives to save the entire surrounding reality from waste, applying this principle to every process - from management to technology. However, it must be remembered that, just like any other tool or process, such cells should be used wisely. Imagine that a nut factory created a cell for cutting steel and punching holes in workpieces. To do this, the plant purchased expensive computerized equipment, which constantly breaks down. This leads to downtime and lost working time. However, the nuts are still taken out of the factory for heat treatment, and weeks pass before they are returned. There are supplies everywhere, as before. Shop workers, seeing colossal losses, laugh at such a “lean cell”, which has nothing to do with the principles of lean production.

The TPS House scheme: a holistic structure, not a set of techniques and methods

For decades, Toyota successfully applied and improved TPS without documenting the theory of its production system. Workers and managers constantly learned new methods and improved old ones, putting them into practice. Within relatively small company Information exchange was well established, so that best practices and systems were quickly learned from other plants and then from supplier companies. As Toyota's methods continued to improve, it became clear that Toyota would always be challenged with supplier training. Therefore, Fujio Cho, a student of Taiichi Ohno, developed simple diagram in the form of a house.
The TPS House diagram (see Figure 3.3) is widely known to those involved in manufacturing. Why exactly the house? Because a house is an integral structure. For a house to be strong and durable, the roof, supports and foundation must be strong and durable. A weak link can destroy the entire system. There are different versions of this scheme, but the basic principles are the same. Goals first: excellent quality, low costs and extremely short lead times are the roof. Then there are two external pillars: JIT, which is the best known attribute of TPS, and jidoka, the goal of which is to prevent defective parts from being passed on to the next stage of the process and to free people from machines, that is, to provide automation with human intelligence. People are at the center of the system. And finally, the components that are the foundation: standardized, stable and reliable processes and heijunka, that is, a production schedule in which fluctuations in volumes and assortment will be minimal. Balanced schedule heijunka Maintains system stability by helping to keep inventory to a minimum. Sharp surges in the production of one type of product due to the exclusion of other products from the range will lead to a shortage of parts or will require the creation of significant inventories.

Each element of the house is important in itself, but the relationship between them is even more important. The JIT system minimizes inventory, which eliminates many problems in the production process. The flow of single products ensures the sequential production of products at a speed that meets customer needs. Keeping inventory to a minimum means that quality defects are identified immediately. This is facilitated by the method jidoka, which allows you to stop the production process. To resume production, workers must resolve the problem immediately. The foundation of the house is stability. It would seem that working with minimal supplies and the possibility of stopping production creates instability. But such a system forces workers to take urgent action. In mass production, if the machine stops, there is no need to rush: the time will come, and the department will fix it Maintenance, meanwhile, production continues as usual, using a reserve stock of parts. In lean manufacturing, if the operator needs to stop the equipment to solve a problem, the remaining areas stop one by one, and the situation becomes critical. Therefore, all participants in the process strive to jointly solve the problem as quickly as possible in order to get the equipment up and running again. If the problem persists, management concludes that the situation is critical and that it may be time to focus on a Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) system to teach employees how to clean, inspect, and maintain equipment. In order for such a system to operate smoothly, a high level of stability is required. People are at the center of the house, since the necessary stability can only be achieved through their tireless improvement. People should be trained to notice waste and identify the root causes of problems. The method of repeatedly asking the question “Why?” helps to find the original source of the problem. The problem should be dealt with on the spot by seeing the situation with your own eyes (genchi genbutsu).
In some versions of this model, the foundation includes a number of other principles of the Toyota approach, such as respect for people. Toyota itself usually includes only cost, quality and delivery discipline in its list of goals, but in fact, the company's enterprises in Japan practice a broader approach to goals (quality, costs, delivery discipline, safety, morale) with some variations. Toyota never sacrifices worker safety for the sake of production. She simply does not have such a need, since eliminating losses has nothing to do with creating stressful conditions and does not threaten safety. Here is what Ono wrote about this:

Of course, we are interested in any method that allows us to reduce the number of man-hours in production, and therefore reduce costs, but the basis for us is safety. Sometimes improvements do not take into account safety requirements. In this case, you need to return to your starting point and reconsider the task at hand. Inaction is unacceptable. Set the task differently and move forward.

Conclusion

TPS is not just a set of lean manufacturing tools. All the elements of this complex system: JIT, cells, 5S (Sort, Organize, Clean, Standardize, Improve - tools discussed in Chapter 13), kanban etc. - function as parts of a single whole. The main task of the system is to encourage people to constantly improve their work process. Unfortunately, many books on lean manufacturing mislead the reader by describing TPS as a set of tools for improving operational efficiency. The challenge of using these tools is overlooked, as is the fact that people are at the center of the system. More broadly, TPS is about putting the Toyota Way into practice. The focus is on the shop floor, but the principles of this approach are much broader and apply not only to production, but also to design and service delivery.
In the next chapter we will look at the 14 principles of the Toyota Way. This is the foundation of Toyota's culture and is what most of this book is about. In Chapters 5 and 6 we'll see how these principles worked in the creation of Lexus and Prius. You will learn what difficulties Toyota faced and how it overcame them.

Chapter 4
14 principles of the Toyota Way: the quintessence of the manufacturing culture that underpins TPS

Since the founding of Toyota, our guiding principle has been to benefit society by producing high-quality products and services. Doing business based on this principle has shaped the values, beliefs and practices that have enabled us to achieve competitive advantage. The combination of these working methods and value orientations of management represents the Toyota approach.

Fujio Cho, President of Toyota (The Toyota Way, 2001)

The Toyota approach goes beyond tools and technology

So, you have introduced your system kanban. (Kanban in Japanese - “tag”, “card”, “receipt” or “signal”. This is the name of the tool for managing the flow and production of products in the “pull” system adopted by Toyota.) You have connected andon, a device for visual monitoring of a production area that alerts workers to defects, equipment malfunctions or other problems using light, sound and similar signals. Now your workspace looks like a Toyota factory. But gradually everything returns to normal, and work goes on again as before. You call the Toyota Production System consultant, who shakes his head in disapproval. What's the matter?
In fact, the main work of implementing lean manufacturing is just beginning. Your workers have no idea about the work culture behind TPS. They are not ready to work tirelessly to improve the system and engage in self-improvement. The Toyota Tao exists primarily thanks to people who work, communicate with each other, make decisions and develop, improving each other and themselves. If you look at successful Japanese companies that operate under a lean production system, you can immediately see how actively workers make suggestions for improvement. But Toyota's approach doesn't stop there: it encourages, supports and requires everyone to participate.
The more I studied TPS and became immersed in the Toyota Way, the more I realized that it is a system that provides people with the tools to continuously improve their work. The Toyota Way is trust in people. This is a kind of culture, and not a set of techniques and methods for improving and increasing efficiency. Reducing inventory and identifying and solving hidden problems is possible only with the help of workers. If they are not responsible enough, do not understand the task at hand, and do not know how to work as a team, downtime and stockpiling will begin. Every day, engineers, skilled workers, quality specialists, suppliers, team leaders and, most importantly, operators are constantly engaged in solving problems, and this allows everyone to learn how to solve them.
One Lean tool that teaches teamwork is called 5S (Sort, Organize, Clean, Standardize, Improve; see Chapter 13 for more details). We are talking about a set of measures to eliminate losses that lead to errors, defects and injuries. The most difficult component of 5S is, perhaps, the fifth – “improve” (stimulate, maintain self-discipline. – Note scientific ed.). This point is the decisive condition for the success of the other four. Maintenance is impossible without appropriate education and training, and workers must be encouraged to comply with operating rules and improve their work methods and their workplace. The conditions for success in achieving the goals are the commitment of management to these approaches, appropriate training and production culture. Only then will maintenance and improvement become commonplace for everyone, from shop floor workers to management.
This chapter provides a brief overview of the 14 principles that make up the Toyota Way. The principles are grouped into four categories:
1, long-term philosophy;
2, the right process produces the right results (this is about using a range of TPS tools);
3, add value to the organization by developing your employees and partners;
4, Constantly solving fundamental problems stimulates lifelong learning.
The second part of the book is also structured around these four categories, which together represent the four-part model of the Toyota Way presented in Chapter 1. In the next two chapters, I will show how these 14 principles worked in the creation of Lexus and Prius. If you'd like to jump ahead to a detailed look at the 14 principles, you can skip to Chapter 7 right now. However, I strongly recommend that you read what follows first.
You can use a whole range of TPS tools, but still follow only a few selected principles of the Toyota approach. This way, you may be able to improve your performance for a while, but the results won't last long. But if a company follows all the principles of the Toyota approach when implementing TPS, it is sure to achieve sustainable competitive advantage.
When I taught a course on Lean Manufacturing, I often heard the question: “How can I apply TPS in my organization? We do not mass produce cars; we make small batches of customized products" or: "We work in the service industry, so TPS is not for us." Such reasoning suggests that people do not understand the main thing. The essence of lean manufacturing is not to copy Toyota tools designed for a specific production process. Lean manufacturing means developing principles that are specific to your organization and sticking to them, effectively creating added value for customers and society. This way your company can become profitable and competitive. The Toyota Way principles provide the starting point. Toyota uses them not only on assembly lines for mass production. In the next chapter we will see how some of these principles are applied to the organizations that provide Toyota product development services.

Brief description of the 14 principles of the Toyota Way

Section I. Long-term philosophy
Principle 1. Make management decisions with a long-term perspective, even if it is detrimental to short-term financial goals.
Use systematic and strategic approaches when setting goals, and all operational decisions should be subordinated to this approach. Realize your place in the history of the company and try to take it to a higher level. Work on the organization, improve and rebuild it, moving towards the main goal, which is more important than making a profit. A conceptual understanding of your purpose is the foundation of all other principles.
Your main task is to create value for the consumer, society and the economy. When assessing any type of activity in a company, consider whether it solves this problem.
Be responsible. Strive to control your destiny. Believe in your strengths and abilities. Be accountable for what you do, maintain and improve the skills that allow you to produce added value.

Section II. The right process produces the right results
Principle 2. A continuous flow process helps identify problems.
Reengineer your process to create a continuous flow that effectively adds value. Minimize the amount of time unfinished work sits idle.
Create a flow of products or information and establish connections between processes and people so that any problem is identified immediately.
This flow must become part of the organizational culture, understandable to everyone. This is the key to continuous improvement and development of people.
Principle 3. Use a pull system to avoid overproduction.
Make sure that the internal consumer who accepts your work gets what he needs at the right time and in the right quantity. The basic principle: in a just-in-time system, the stock of products should be replenished only as they are consumed.
Minimize work in progress and inventory storage. Keep a small number of items in stock and replenish these stocks as customers pick them up.
Be sensitive to daily fluctuations in consumer demand that provide more information than computer systems and graphics. This will help avoid losses due to the accumulation of excess inventory.
Principle 4. Distribute the amount of work evenly ( heijunka): work like a tortoise, not like a hare.
Eliminating waste is only one of three conditions for lean manufacturing success. Eliminating overload of people and equipment and smoothing out uneven production schedules are equally important. This is often not understood in companies that are trying to apply lean principles.
Work to distribute the load evenly in all processes related to production and service. This is an alternative to alternating rush jobs and downtime, characteristic of mass production.
Principle 5. Make stopping production to solve problems part of the production culture if quality requires it.

The Tao of Toyota Liker Jeffrey

Toyota Production System (TPS) and lean manufacturing

The Toyota Production System is a unique approach to manufacturing. It gave birth to the lean manufacturing movement, which (together with the concept of Six Sigma) has become one of the dominant trends in the last ten years. Although the lean manufacturing movement has become very popular, I hope this book will convince you that most attempts to create lean manufacturing have been rather superficial. Most companies have paid too much attention to tools such as 5S and JIT, without understanding lean manufacturing as a unified system, as the spirit that permeates the culture of the organization. In most companies that have attempted to implement lean manufacturing, top management has not been involved in the day-to-day operations and continuous improvement that are an integral part of this production system. Toyota approaches this differently.

What is a lean enterprise? It can be said that this is the end result of applying the Toyota Production System at all stages of the business. In a beautifully written book " Lean» James Womack and Daniel Jones define lean manufacturing as a process that includes five stages:

Determining value for the consumer;

Building a consistent flow of creating this value;

Ensuring the continuity of this flow;

Ensuring “pull” from the customer;

The pursuit of excellence.

To become lean, a manufacturer must adopt a mindset that enables one-piece flow—that is, to move the product through value-added stages without disruption, interruption, or interruption. This requires a “pull” system, which primarily takes into account consumer requests and assumes that only what will be used immediately is sent to the next stage of the process. Moreover, lean manufacturing requires a culture where everyone strives for continuous improvement.

Taiichi no, the founder of TPS, put it much more succinctly:

All we do is monitor the time between the consumer placing an order and receiving money for the work completed. We shorten this time span by eliminating waste that does not add value (Ohno, 1988).

In Chapter 2 we will learn more about what production system Toyota was developed after World War II, when Toyota was in a very different environment than Ford and GM. While Ford and GM focused heavily on mass production, economies of scale, and the desire to produce as many parts as possible at lower costs, Toyota's market in post-war Japan was very small. To satisfy consumer demands, Toyota had to use the same assembly lines to create a wide variety of cars. Flexibility became a decisive factor for the effectiveness of its work. This helped Toyota make an important discovery: by reducing development time and making production lines flexible, it could achieve best quality, be more responsive to customer needs, increase operational efficiency and make much more efficient use of equipment and space. Although Ford's traditional mass production had the appeal of being cheap per unit, the consumer would have preferred to have much more choice than the mass-producers could offer without being left at a loss. During the 1940s and 1950s, Toyota devoted itself to eliminating wastage of time and materials at all stages of the production process - from raw materials to finished products. This is what most companies need today: dynamic, flexible processes that give the customer what they need, when they need it, and deliver highest quality at a reasonable price.

The focus on "flow" continues to be the foundation of Toyota's success in the 21st century. Companies like Dell are also famous for their short lead times, high inventory turnover, and quick payback, which allows them to grow rapidly. But even Dell has only just begun to transform itself into the modern "lean enterprise" that Toyota has created through decades of training and hard work.

Unfortunately, most companies still use the mass production technologies that worked well for Henry Ford in the 1920s, when manufacturer flexibility and consumer preference were of little importance. The first to draw attention to the effectiveness of individual mass production processes was Frederick Taylor, who at the beginning of the 20th century began scientific management. Like the creators of the Toyota Production System, Taylor sought to eliminate waste from production processes. He supervised the workers to eliminate any wasteful movements. The ideologists of mass production were well aware of other non-value-adding factors, such as equipment downtime. After all, if you have to turn off the machine and repair it, it does not produce parts that cost money. But let's look at the seemingly illogical principles regarding the operation of non-value-adding factors that underlie the TPS philosophy.

It is often better to shut down the machine and stop producing parts. This is done to avoid overproduction, which is the main type of waste in TPS.

It is often better to maintain some inventory of finished goods to keep the production schedule more balanced, rather than produce according to current fluctuations in customer demand. Production schedule leveling (heijunka) is the basis of the flow leveling system and the pull system, allowing the inventory of supplied parts to be kept to a minimum. (Levelling assumes that variation in volume and product mix from day to day is kept to a minimum.)

Selective increases in use are sometimes necessary and justified. work force and its replacement of overhead costs, which makes it possible to remove unnecessary burden from workers creating added value. In order for them to work without loss, they need to be provided with quality support - just like a surgeon during a critical operation.

It is not always necessary for workers to produce parts as quickly as possible. The speed of production of parts is determined by consumer requirements. If you, without sufficient reason, maximize the productivity of workers, then this will only be another form of overproduction and will actually lead to an overall increase in the number of people employed.

For use information technologies and automation should be approached selectively, preferring them in some cases handmade, even if it seems that automation will pay off by reducing the number of workers. People are the most flexible resource you have. Until manual operations are thought through to the smallest detail, you will not understand which areas you really need to automate.

In other words, Toyota's approach to solving individual problems often seems to add costs rather than eliminate them. As Taiichi walked the floor and learned from experience, he came to a paradoxical conclusion: Eliminating non-value-added activities had nothing to do with running equipment to its limit. When eliminating waste, the focus should be on how raw materials are converted into marketable goods. ?but I walked around the workshops to determine which specific actions in the processing of raw materials create added value. Everything else was waste that needed to be eliminated. He learned how to map the value stream where raw materials are transformed into a final product that the customer is willing to pay for. This approach was fundamentally different from the philosophy of mass production, where waste of time and effort in existing production processes was identified, calculated and eliminated.

If you, likewise, walk through the workshops and look at the processes in your organization, you will see materials, invoices, maintenance requests, prototypes of parts manufactured by design bureaus (here you could easily add that matches your business process) are transformed into what the consumer needs. Upon closer inspection, it often turns out that “deposits” are formed, and a lot of time passes before a particular product is fed to the next stage of the processing process. You are unlikely to enjoy standing in long queues at every step. ?but I thought that about the same thing was happening with parts and materials. They, too, can’t wait to wait in the wings. If a large batch of parts lies idle and waits until it is needed, if mountains of unfulfilled applications accumulate, if designers do not have time to test prototypes, such waiting turns into losses. As a result, external and internal consumers become impatient. That's why TPS starts with the customer and asks, “What value should we create from the customer's perspective?” There is only one thing that leads to the creation of value during any process - be it production, marketing or the development process - the material or information transformation of a product, service or operation that makes it possible to obtain the product the consumer needs.

Introduction Lean consumption and lean provision Consumption. It sounds very simple, and developed countries With market economy for some reason it is believed that consumption does not require any effort. Consumers easily, even instantly, get exactly what they want. But still

Sustainable Lean Leadership We have just looked at an example of a major transformation involving the application of lean consumption principles in mass-market companies. It corresponds to the kaikaku process (revolutionary stage) with

The Lean Air Travel Imaginary How can we best solve the problem of the consumer wanting to get to Charybdis safely with minimal time and hassle, in a cost effective and profitable way for the carrier? We always

What is lean manufacturing? Lean manufacturing, or “Toyotism,” is an approach aimed at creating production without waste and costs, compact and efficient. It was called “Toyotism” because it was first applied at Toyota factories and became