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The Toyota Way

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Re: The Toyota Way

#111

Post by jdkee »

smush wrote: post #89
nradov wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically Toyota now has longer product lives than many other mainstream manufacturers. The Camry and Corolla are on roughly 6 year product lifecycles. The 4Runner has barely changed in 10 years.

> The 4Runner has barely changed in 10 years. To be fair, that may be a purposeful design decision. I consider the fact that the 4Runner can trace its way back to a 1980s Hilux that Top Gear dropped off a building (and still survived) to be nothing but good for its likely reliability. Similarly, its primarily dial-based dashboard (as opposed to the touch-screen everywhere fad right now), truck-based suspension, and o…

That's incorrect by an order of magnitude. Lexus sells in excess of half a million cars per year.

Re: The Toyota Way

#112

Post by karthikb »

nradov wrote: post #73
lemax wrote: post #53

"The Machine That Changed the World" is a wonderful title on this. Kiichiro Toyoda invented the lean production model after coming to the states and studying the inefficiencies of the assembly lines of Ford. This was a process dependent on modularizing every manufacturing component due to a demand for the Toyota company to serve a market with a need for an immense variety of vehicles, and giving teams ownership of th…

Ironically Toyota now has longer product lives than many other mainstream manufacturers. The Camry and Corolla are on roughly 6 year product lifecycles. The 4Runner has barely changed in 10 years.

> The 4Runner has barely changed in 10 years.

Which makes a lot of sense when you consider how and where it's used. It's easier to have service and repair infrastructure for one car with identical mechanicals over a decade than 3 or 4.

Re: The Toyota Way

#113

Post by favorited »

pier25 wrote: post #101
0898 wrote: post #52

"Work like the tortoise, not the hare." I knew I was onto something.

Completely unrelated but... I was listening to the "The Rocky Road to Dublin" when reading your comment during the "hunt the hare" part. Funny coincidence.

Which version? The Dubliners recording (with Luke Kelly singing) is one of my favorite songs of all time.

Re: The Toyota Way

#114

Post by polskibus »

novaleaf wrote: post #102

Whenever I see articles like this, I like to remind people that a great production system doesn't make a company more honest or accountable. Unintended acceleration flaw in Toyota models around 2005 to 2011, due to firmware bugs: http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintende... Great for USA customers. They were made whole. I personally was driving a 2011 Toyota minivan in Thailand in 2013 when I suffe…

I see it differently, according to some reports, Toyota Way did not really acknowledge software as part of the production process.

see https://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-kille...

I also remember reading another report that mentioned that software engineering was regarded as 2nd class discipline to hardware in many Japanese companies, and that resulted in sloppiness, lack of oversight and rigorous testing at that time. This problem was partially mitigated by placing SW R&D in other countries, where it was easier to attract talent.

Lean methodology is focused on quality on multiple layers, however, as you mentioned, the implementation may not fulfil the spec.

Re: The Toyota Way

#115

Post by chiefalchemist »

Jtsummers wrote: post #49
chiefalchemist wrote: post #41

Isn't this based on a "philosophy" published by Bell Labs a couple of decades prior?

Can you point to a source or resource on that?

I've read it mentioned a number of places - as it's somewhat mythical - but the source that comes to mind at the moment - but perhaps I'm getting it wrong? - was the book "Creativity Inc."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativity%2C_Inc.

Re: The Toyota Way

#116

Post by sixdimensional »

And what I have seen (working in a similarly famous Japanese company) is that while these management models are quite powerful, they lack interpretation in the modern age - that is to say, how they apply to systems, data, software, etc. For example, if data quality is not respected holistically (an extension of the focus on "quality"), the organization and its constituents (customers, employees, stakeholders) suffer.

Re: The Toyota Way

#117

Post by smush »

jdkee wrote: post #111
smush wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 4Runner has barely changed in 10 years. To be fair, that may be a purposeful design decision. I consider the fact that the 4Runner can trace its way back to a 1980s Hilux that Top Gear dropped off a building (and still survived) to be nothing but good for its likely reliability. Similarly, its primarily dial-based dashboard (as opposed to the touch-screen everywhere fad right now), truck-based suspension, and o…

That's incorrect by an order of magnitude. Lexus sells in excess of half a million cars per year.

I stand corrected.

Having performed some cursory 'research' I found that in the USA in 2018, according to https://www.best-selling-cars.com/brands/2018-full-year-usa-...

All Lexus vehicles combined sold 92,660 units versus the 4Runner model which sold 139,694 units.

A difference of 47,000 units, or roughly, the 2018 US sales for the Lexus ES

Re: The Toyota Way

#120

Post by bluedino »

smush wrote: post #89
nradov wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically Toyota now has longer product lives than many other mainstream manufacturers. The Camry and Corolla are on roughly 6 year product lifecycles. The 4Runner has barely changed in 10 years.

> The 4Runner has barely changed in 10 years. To be fair, that may be a purposeful design decision. I consider the fact that the 4Runner can trace its way back to a 1980s Hilux that Top Gear dropped off a building (and still survived) to be nothing but good for its likely reliability. Similarly, its primarily dial-based dashboard (as opposed to the touch-screen everywhere fad right now), truck-based suspension, and o…

Lexus sells over 100,000 RX SUV’s a year alone. Toyota sells its twin, the Highlander, at over 200,000 units each of the last three years.

They also don’t change it very often.

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