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In a similar vein, and also from Japan - 'pointing and calling', used on the railways. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_and_calling
This seems like an interesting and useful process design concept on one hand, and on the other hand, it also sounds like a Japanese buzzword for foolproofing (in fact, the article notes that the term was originally “baka-yoke”, which is literally “foolproof” or “idiot-proof”). On the one hand, I don’t think Toyota invented the concept of foolproofing; on the other hand, giving it a cool buzzword gives you an excuse t…
One example I can think of would be a torque tool used in a critical step of the assembly process. Since modern factories allow different models of roughly similar product types to be assembled on the same production line, it is important that the torque tool is run using the correct settings for each model. In this example, the operator has to scan a barcode on the vehicle and the corresponding barcode on the computerized torque tool before the tool will work. This not only sets the tool to the correct setting, it forces the operator to stop and think for a second when the tool doesn't work. By doing this as the first step, it also ingrains the knowledge of which model number the operator is working on as they consciously have to scan the right barcode on the tool as there's a unique barcode for each variant they'll see coming down the line. That way they are more likely to catch any incorrect/mismatched parts tied to later stages of assembly carried out at their station (i.e. they know they are working on Model X Sport but the parts bin shadowing this chassis has a cosmetic piece that is only for the Model X Limited).
Also, I;ve always found it funny that the phrase sounds like poke-a-yoke (yoke, as in yokel) given how it's used in the industry to describe a way of prodding someone to pay attention.
This seems like an interesting and useful process design concept on one hand, and on the other hand, it also sounds like a Japanese buzzword for foolproofing (in fact, the article notes that the term was originally “baka-yoke”, which is literally “foolproof” or “idiot-proof”). On the one hand, I don’t think Toyota invented the concept of foolproofing; on the other hand, giving it a cool buzzword gives you an excuse t…
It's hard not to be dismissive of what appears to be a simple set of concepts, but you're missing on an opportunity to learn a very cool set of skills here. I recommend that anyone who wants to live a better life and do better work read books on the Toyota Production System and Taiichi Ohno. As for Poka-Yoke, It's a word that seems simple but when used in industry contexts communicates a deeper set of requirements th…
Edit: Plus, Wikipedia does a very inconsistent job of explaining conceptual things in non-superficial ways; probably because most extended discussions of “poka-yoke” wouldn’t be “neutral” or “verifiable” or would “favor one particular source”. I haven’t checked it lately, but Wikipedia’s article on method acting used to do almost nothing to explain what the hell it was; it just had a lot of verbiage about who does it and who learned it from whom. Maybe there needs to be a separate concept explanation wiki that has different requirements.
One of my professors (I am an Industrial engineer) used the example of a SIM card. I imagine people can still get it wrong when putting it in, but much less so (ehem USB) because of that slight cut in the rectangle. It also helps a lot when manufacturing those things to get the orientation right.
Another mistake proofing anecdote I've heard was about one of his students interning at a company that packages soap. Somehow there were empty boxes going through the conveyors after some process change. Some of the mechanical engineers were already thinking about some modification to the conveyors that detect weight, etc. The IE student apparently simply went in one of the back offices and got a spare electric fan and pointed it at the conveyor so the empty boxes fly out. Troubleshooting doesn't have to be expensive.
This seems like an interesting and useful process design concept on one hand, and on the other hand, it also sounds like a Japanese buzzword for foolproofing (in fact, the article notes that the term was originally “baka-yoke”, which is literally “foolproof” or “idiot-proof”). On the one hand, I don’t think Toyota invented the concept of foolproofing; on the other hand, giving it a cool buzzword gives you an excuse t…
"Common sense" isn't common. Not only that, it's ridiculously unpopular to try to change people's ideas of what common sense is. You can see this even on HN when people suggest that programming language tooling should constrain defects. It's interesting how much of "Japanese" manufacturing practice is really the work of W Edwards Deming, the prophet without honor in his home country.
Meanwhile, the Japanese, who already know that industrialization is the key to development (which is why after Meiji they started an empire in the first place, to gather the necessary resources) were all too ready to learn.
From my understanding, Deming’s emphasis was on quality, and you still see this as the emphasis for Japanese manufacturing. Perhaps the Japanese were more interested in focusing on quality because they knew they would never match the quantity of a continental power, but quality (albeit not to the standards Japan would later set) was also a distinguishing factor for American war manufacturing. We didn’t take the Soviet approach of building as many tanks as physically possible even when it meant cutting corners, largely because we didn’t have to (and the Soviets surely didn’t complain about their massive numbers of cheap tanks).
This seems like an interesting and useful process design concept on one hand, and on the other hand, it also sounds like a Japanese buzzword for foolproofing (in fact, the article notes that the term was originally “baka-yoke”, which is literally “foolproof” or “idiot-proof”). On the one hand, I don’t think Toyota invented the concept of foolproofing; on the other hand, giving it a cool buzzword gives you an excuse t…
It all boiled down to "Kaizen", another simple concept meaning "continuous improvement." From what I remember, one implementation of kaizen was that employees were expected to stop what they were doing two or three times a day and spend 10 minutes organizing their workspace. This seeming waste of 20-30 minutes a day actually increased efficiency by having all tools in the right places at all times.
Working with them was a real eye-opening experience - it showed me how simple concepts can have a huge impact on a business when applying them consistently and with (sometimes maddening) discipline.
As I was reading this Wikipedia entry, I came upon the part where it said it was developed by Toyota and actually uttered out loud "of course it's Toyota!" I have nothing but respect for their work ethic and discipline.
This seems like an interesting and useful process design concept on one hand, and on the other hand, it also sounds like a Japanese buzzword for foolproofing (in fact, the article notes that the term was originally “baka-yoke”, which is literally “foolproof” or “idiot-proof”). On the one hand, I don’t think Toyota invented the concept of foolproofing; on the other hand, giving it a cool buzzword gives you an excuse t…
>I’m also kind of amused at how the entire business world basically said, “man, this company made super reliable cars in the 80’s and 90’s[1], let’s learn their secrets” and it turns out that once you strip away the exotic Japanese veneer, it’s mostly just systemized common sense. Which is not a minor thing to do, to be fair, except it’s easy for businesses to take good, well-systemized ideas and utterly misapply the…
This seems like an interesting and useful process design concept on one hand, and on the other hand, it also sounds like a Japanese buzzword for foolproofing (in fact, the article notes that the term was originally “baka-yoke”, which is literally “foolproof” or “idiot-proof”). On the one hand, I don’t think Toyota invented the concept of foolproofing; on the other hand, giving it a cool buzzword gives you an excuse t…
It's hard not to be dismissive of what appears to be a simple set of concepts, but you're missing on an opportunity to learn a very cool set of skills here. I recommend that anyone who wants to live a better life and do better work read books on the Toyota Production System and Taiichi Ohno. As for Poka-Yoke, It's a word that seems simple but when used in industry contexts communicates a deeper set of requirements th…
Doing a quick search on Amazon I found: Toyota Production System: An Integrated Approach to Just-In-Time https://www.amazon.com/dp/143982097X/ref=sr_ob_1?ie=UTF8&qid...
Taiichi Ohnos Workplace Management: Special 100th Birthday Edition https://www.amazon.com/Taiichi-Ohnos-Workplace-Management-Bi...
The Toyota Mindset: The Ten Commandments of Taiichi Ohno https://www.amazon.com/Toyota-Mindset-Commandments-Taiichi-O...
There seem to be handful directly from Taiichi Ohno (including a management book), and then many that refer to him and his process. Guidance would be appreciated!
This seems like an interesting and useful process design concept on one hand, and on the other hand, it also sounds like a Japanese buzzword for foolproofing (in fact, the article notes that the term was originally “baka-yoke”, which is literally “foolproof” or “idiot-proof”). On the one hand, I don’t think Toyota invented the concept of foolproofing; on the other hand, giving it a cool buzzword gives you an excuse t…
I used to work for a Toyota supplier years ago, and got to visit one of their ports where cars and parts enter the US from Japan for further assembly (like a mix of car garage and factory). It was striking how organized and neat everything is. It all boiled down to "Kaizen", another simple concept meaning "continuous improvement." From what I remember, one implementation of kaizen was that employees were expected to…
While I largely agree with you, in North America I can't help but think that some of the principles are sometimes mis-applied.
Related to the principle of Kaizen, I was witness to continuous improvement being used as justification to continually demand more of employees to the point where practices like you've mentioned were actually discouraged. If your machine stopped for that long, management and maintenance would be flagged down automatically. 20 to 30 minutes of downtime in a day would have been flat-out unacceptable no matter the reason.
The cause being that if your workflow increased in efficiency and accuracy to the point where manufacturing goals were being matched and or beat, the goals would increase without investigation. after a few iterations of that, operators would find themselves always below the threshold of required output.
This was often used as justification to let employees go to fill the positions with temp staffers. Keep in mind this was over a decade ago and was local NA management's initiatives.
So I guess like anything it has to be applied properly to see the proclaimed benefits.
In software, we know that the later a bug is caught, the more expensive (in terms of time / resources) it is to fix. So we want to catch bugs / mistakes earlier.
The "simple" idea that Poka-yoke introduces is to make it harder to make the mistake in the first place. If a physical component can be mounted more than one way, but there is only one correct way, then design it such that it is impossible to mount it incorrectly. This can be done by making the mounting holes for the part asymmetrical, for example.
IMO, in software a similar concept would be to fail early and fail hard.