41–50 of 62 posts
In my experience these things are developed over time in response to failure. Always keeping the poka-yoke concept in the back of your mind helps when designing systems, but you don't really know how people will misuse tools until they're in action.
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…
Perhaps you're saying that the phrase is akin to "big data" or "AI" in that it doesn't really say much. The idea that this concept can be misapplied doesn't serve well to steelman its useful core concept and philosophy which is timeless. My favorite example are electrical plugs [1]. Whatever beef you have with Toyota, Japanese, or buzzwords just seems inappropriate here and lowers the quality of discussion.
[1] https://image.slidesharecdn.com/pokayoke-150112043214-conver...
Just want to share some stories: 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…
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…
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…
Have you come across this podcast / radio programme episode? https://www.thisamericanlife.org/403/nummi
It's about a joint venture between Toyota and GM in the 1980s. It discusses the culture shock the US workers experienced and the labour relations at the plant. The people interviewed give their own views on why GM didn't / couldn't adopt the lessons learnt in their own plants.
tl;dl The previous GM plant on the site had had terrible problems with the workers there. The new venture hired the same people (starting with the shop stewards) and brought in a totally different way of doing things which totally changed the culture. GM struggled to adopt the Toyota way of doing things in it's own plants because the entire manufacturing chain and culture across the industry had to change to make it possible. I really recommend listening to the whole thing.
After NUMMI closed the Fremont site was taken over by another US manufacturer that sought to improve on existing methods with a greater degree of automation.
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 don't really understand the point of your message, it feels like forced cynicism around the cultural reception of the term. Perhaps you're saying that the phrase is akin to "big data" or "AI" in that it doesn't really say much. The idea that this concept can be misapplied doesn't serve well to steelman its useful core concept and philosophy which is timeless. My favorite example are electrical plugs [1]. Whatever b…
Hey, I'm sorry it came across that way, because I don't have a beef with anyone. But I've explained and expanded on what I've said in this thread a lot before you came along with that comment, and I think it's uncalled for (and "lowers the quality of discussion") to assume bad faith the way that you're doing right now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They called it the obvious word in their own language, it's only a cool buzzword to non-native speakers reading English Wikipedia. I'm more making fun of the American business consultants who are going to try and cargo-cult this idea and make it sound more impressive than it actually is by not using the already commonplace American English idiom that describes the same concept. The term "poka-yoke" seems to date fr…
In a large part, it's because Western business practices suffer from a lot of ego. I suspect consulting has a lot of cargo-culting because you need to wrap things up in a foreign veneer in order to implement certain optimizations without outright calling someone an idiot.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Any specific books you would recommend? 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/…
Mr. Akers also has several hundred videos about Lean on his YouTube channel. https://paulakers.net/lean-videos
And for an impressive display of what Lean can do, watch this video “Lean Manufacturing - Kaizen Methodology - Lean FastCap Style” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=su9CulCZTBg
