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Toyota production system ³House´

Development of TPS is credited to Taiichi Ohno, Toyota's chief of production in post-WWII

period.

Beginning in machining operation and spreading from there, Ohno led the development of
TPS at Toyota throughout the 1950's and 1960's and the dissemination to the supply base
through the 1960's and 1970's. Outside Japan, dissemination began in ernest with the creation
of the Toyota-General Motors joint venture - NUMMI - in California in 1984.

The concepts of Just-in-Time (JIT) and jidoka both have their roots in the pre-war period.
Sakichi Toyoda, founder of the Toyota group of companies, invented the concept of Jidoka in
the early 20th Century by incorporating a device on his automatic looms that would stop the
loom from operation whenever a thread broke.

This enabled great improvements in quality and freed people up to do more value creating
work than simply monitoring machines for quality. Eventually, this simple concept found its
way into every machine, every production line, and every Toyota operation.

Kiichiro Toyoda, son of Sakichi and founder of the Toyota automobile business, developed
the concept of Just-in-Time in the 1930's. He decreed that Toyota operations would contain
no excess inventory and that Toyota would strive to work in partnership with suppliers to
level production.

Under Ohno's leadership, JIT developed into a unique system of material and information
flows to control overproduction.

Widespread recognition of TPS as the model production system grew rapidly with the
publication in 1990 of "The machine that changed the world", the result of five years of
research led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The MIT researchers found that TPA was so much more effective and efficient than
traditional, mass production that it represented a completely new paradigm and coined the
term "Lean Production" to indicate this radically different approach to production.







 


 

   
  
 

   
 


 


 
Toyota Motor Corporation's vehicle production system is a way of "making things" that is
sometimes referred to as a "lean manufacturing system" or a "Just-in-Time (JIT) system," and
has come to be well known and studied worldwide.
This production control system has been established based on many years of continuous
improvements, with the objective of "making the vehicles ordered by customers in the
quickest and most efficient way, in order to deliver the vehicles as quickly as possible."
The Toyota Production System (TPS) was established based on two concepts: The first is
called "jidoka"(which can be loosely translated as "automation with a human touch") which
means that when a problem occurs, the equipment stops immediately, preventing defective
products from being produced; The second is the concept of "Just-in-Time," in which each
process produces only what is needed by the next process in a continuous flow.
Based on the basic philosophies of jidoka and Just-in-Time, the TPS can efficiently and
quickly produce vehicles of sound quality, one at a time, that fully satisfy customer
requirements.

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If a defective part or equipment malfunction is Producing quality products efficiently

discovered, the machine concerned through the complete elimination of waste,
automatically stops, and operators stop work inconsistencies, and unreasonable
and correct the problem. requirements on the production line.
For the Just-in-Time system to function, all of In order to deliver a vehicle ordered by a
the parts that are made and supplied must customer as quickly as possible, the vehicle
meet predetermined quality standards. This is is efficiently built within the shortest
achieved through jidoka. possible period by adhering to the
following:
1.Jidoka means that a machine safely stops
when the normal processing is completed. It 1.When a vehicle order is received, a
also means that, should a quality or production instruction must be issued
equipment problem arise, the machine to the beginning of the vehicle
detects the problem on its own and stop, production line as soon as possible.
preventing defective products from being 2.The assembly line must be stocked
produced. As a result, only products with small numbers of all types of
satisfying the quality standards will be parts so that any kind of vehicle
passed on to the next processes on the ordered can be assembled.
production line.
3.The assembly line must replace the
2.Since a machine automatically stops when
parts used by retrieving the same
processing is completed or when a problem
number of parts from the parts-
 arises and is communicated via the "andon producing process (the preceding
(problem display board)," operators can process).
confidently continue performing work at 4.The preceding process must be
another machine, as well as easily identify stocked with small numbers of all
the problem cause and prevent its types of parts and produce only the
recurrence. This means that each operator numbers of parts that were retrieved
can be in charge of many machines, by an operator from the next process.
resulting in higher productivity, while the
continuous improvements lead to greater
processing capacity.


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"Just-in-Time" means making only "what is needed, when it is needed, and in the amount
needed." To efficiently produce a large number of products such as automobiles, which are
comprised of some 30,000 parts, it is necessary to create a detailed production plan that
includes parts procurement, for example.
Supplying "what is needed, when it is needed, and in the amount needed" according to this
production plan can eliminate waste, inconsistencies, and unreasonable requirements,
resulting in improved productivity
+ 

In the TPS, a unique production control method called the "kanban system" plays an
important role. The kanban system has also been called the "Supermarket method" because
the idea behind it was borrowed from supermarkets. Supermarkets and mass merchandizing
stores use product control cards on which product-related information, such as product name,
product code, and storage location, is entered. Because Toyota employed kanban signs in
place of the cards for use in production processes, the method came to be called the "kanban
system." At Toyota, when a process goes to the preceding process to retrieve parts, it uses a
kanban to communicate what parts have been used.

- Why use a supermarket concept?

A supermarket stocks the items needed by customers when they are needed in the quantity
needed, and has all of these items available for sale at any time.
Taiichi Ohno (a former Toyota vice president), who promoted the idea of Just-in-Time,
applied this concept, equating the supermarket and the customer with the preceding process
and the next process, respectively. By having the next process (the customer) go to the
preceding process (the supermarket) to retrieve the necessary parts when they are needed and
in the amount needed, it was possible to improve upon the existing inefficient production
system in which the preceding processes were making excess parts and delivering them to the
next process.

+'

Introduction

Kaizen is a daily activity, the purpose of which goes beyond simple productivity
improvement. It is also a process that, when done correctly, humanizes the workplace,
eliminates overly hard work (Muri), and teaches people how to perform experiments on their
work using the scientific method and how to learn to spot and eliminate waste in business
processes.scientific method (Muri)

To be most effective kaizen must operate with three principles in place: systemic thinking

a consider the process and the results (not results-only) so that actions to achieve effects
are surfaced;
a systemic thinking of the whole process and not just that immediately in view (i.e. big
picture, not solely the narrow view) in order to avoid creating problems elsewhere in
the process; and
a a learning, non-judgmental, non-blaming (because blaming is wasteful) approach and
intent will allow the re-examination of the assumptions that resulted in the current
process.

People at all levels of an organization can participate in kaizen, from the CEO down, as well
as external stakeholders when applicable. The format for kaizen can be individual, suggestion
system, small group, or large group. At Toyota, it is usually a local improvement within a
workstation or local area and involves a small group in improving their own work
environment and productivity. This group is often guided through the kaizen process by a line
supervisor; sometimes this is the line supervisor's key role.

While kaizen (at Toyota) usually delivers small improvements, the culture of continual
aligned small improvements and standardization yields large results in the form of compound
productivity improvement. Hence the English usage of "kaizen" can be: "continuous
improvement" or "continual improvement."

This philosophy differs from the "command-and-control" improvement programs of the mid-
twentieth century. Kaizen methodology includes making changes and monitoring results, then
adjusting. Large-scale pre-planning and extensive project scheduling are replaced by smaller
experiments, which can be rapidly adapted as new improvements are suggested.

In Japanese this is pronounced "kaizen".

a ü ("kai") means "change" or "the action to correct".

a  ("zen") means "good".

In Chinese this is pronounced "gai shan":

a ü ("gǎi shàn") means "change for the better" or "improve".

a ü ("gǎi") means "change" or "the action to correct".

a  ("shàn") means "good" or "benefit". "Benefit" is more related to the Taoist or

Buddhist philosophy, which gives the definition as the action that 'benefits' the society
but not one particular individual (i.e., multilateral improvement). In other words, one
cannot benefit at another's expense. The quality of benefit that is involved here should
be sustained forever, in other words the "shan" is an act that truly benefits others.

Kaizen (Japanese for ´improvement´) is a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous

improvement throughout all aspects of life. When applied to the workplace, Kaizen activities
continually improve all functions of a business, from manufacturing to management and from
the CEO to the assembly line workers. By improving standardized activities and processes,
Kaizen aims to eliminate waste ß,
-Kaizen was first implemented in
several Japanese businesses during the country's recovery after World War II, including
Toyota, and has since spread to businesses throughout the world.