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The Toyota Way

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Re: The Toyota Way

#71

Post by germinalphrase »

jakejarvis wrote: post #47
Symmetry wrote: post #29

I initially misread that as "The Toyota War". Which was a real thing, named that because Chad used Toyota Land Cruisers to defeat Libya. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War

The entire decades-long overseas diversion saga surrounding American Toyota pickups has always fascinated me. Top Gear did an episode [0] trying to destroy a Toyota Hilux (similar to the Land Cruiser) and literally couldn't, which explains why it's so popular with terrorists. It's a worthwhile watch if you want to see truck survive after being drowned in water, fire, and the rubble of a demolished skyscraper. Say wha…

Now - if only you could buy a small, durable truck in the US.

Re: The Toyota Way

#72

Post by Retra »

mindcrime wrote: post #67

This Toyota stuff gets a little bit of a bad rap in some circles, because of the infamous "TPS report" thing - some people believe it's a reference to "Toyota Production System." My understanding is that the Office Space reference was actually meant to be to Testing Procedure Specification documents, but it's hard to be sure. In any case, Toyota / Lean / etc. is a mindset that has a lot of really good ideas embedded…

I'm pretty sure the writers of Office Space have gone on record saying "TPS report" is a meaningless term used simply to evoke a sense of wasteful bureaucratic nonsense.

Re: The Toyota Way

#73

Post by nradov »

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.

Re: The Toyota Way

#74

Post by mindcrime »

Retra wrote: post #72
mindcrime wrote: post #67

This Toyota stuff gets a little bit of a bad rap in some circles, because of the infamous "TPS report" thing - some people believe it's a reference to "Toyota Production System." My understanding is that the Office Space reference was actually meant to be to Testing Procedure Specification documents, but it's hard to be sure. In any case, Toyota / Lean / etc. is a mindset that has a lot of really good ideas embedded…

I'm pretty sure the writers of Office Space have gone on record saying "TPS report" is a meaningless term used simply to evoke a sense of wasteful bureaucratic nonsense.

Hmm... this article[1] cites an interview with Mike Judge where he says it mean "Test Program Set" when he was an engineer.

Anyway, I've seen more than a few people jump to the conclusion that it stands for something to do with the "Toyota Production System" which is unfortunate.

[1]: http://mentalfloss.com/article/57338/what-tps-report

Re: The Toyota Way

#75

Post by kesor »

I love the Toyota books, read almost any book that is somehow connected to TPS, Toyota, Lean and such.

There is a really fun to read a trilogy by Michael Ballé, the first book is called "The Gold Mine".

And from Goldratt, all of his books and videos and related material is also a favorite. Specifically, about Toyota, Eli Goldratt wrote an article that provides the historical context and what problems Toyota solved, and then continue to improve upon that solution to invent a new solution that is even more amazing. Highly recommended 10m read for free here https://www.goldrattconsulting.com/webfiles/fck/files/Standi...

Re: The Toyota Way

#76

Post by mcguire »

nradov wrote: post #38
tim333 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though of course in traditional theory the company should be run for the shareholders rather than the executives. It's a bit of a flaw in the system if they can extract large bonuses while tanking the stock. Maybe the government could write some laws that bonuses have to be held in escrow for a while to check the company survives. (And in more modern views maybe you should worry about the other stakeholders too.)

Shareholders are free to impose deferred compensation schemes on executives. In fact many companies have done so. No new laws are needed.

Which companies?

Most shares in most companies I've seen have been owned or controlled by executives or by institutional investors (mutual funds, insurance cos., pensions) that tend to vote with executives' recommendations. Without high-level executive support, shareholders are free to do whatever they want, but the important ones typically don't want.

Re: The Toyota Way

#77

Post by kesor »

thendrill wrote: post #3

That shit works only if you are Japanese.... Have Japanese mentality and work culture... Also your product is a car.. Or something tangable made on a production line.... Agile IS the Toyota way... Or at least tries to be

This story about NUMMI (where Tesla factory resides) shows that it is not just Japanese who can enjoy improvement, same goes for Americans whose managers are a bit more open minded. https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015

Re: The Toyota Way

#78

Post by la_barba »

wil421 wrote: post #26

>Principle 5 Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time. Quality takes precedence (Jidoka). Any employee in the Toyota Production System has the authority to stop the process to signal a quality issue. I heard culturally Japan and to an extent other Asian manufacturing nations would never actually press the button. Can anyone confirm this?

>I heard culturally Japan and to an extent other Asian manufacturing nations would never actually press the button. Can anyone confirm this?

Its a cord, not a button, and the cord gets pulled all the time. It is a bit brave of Toyota to admit this fact when today's "journalists" are always looking for an angle to take a quote out of context and clickbait the headline. "Toyota admits they have constant flaws in their manufacturing process"

https://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/toyota-quality-c...

https://www.leanblog.org/2012/11/andon-cords-at-the-toyota-t...

"In our introductory discussions about Japanese culture, Brad talked about the importance of harmony (“Big Harmony”) in Japanese culture. Because of the overwhelming need for harmony, people often wouldn't naturally speak up. They might be more willing to cover up a problem than to really fix it. So, the andon cord is a mechanism that makes it easier for people to speak up."

Re: The Toyota Way

#79

Post by mcguire »

marcosdumay wrote: post #45
tim333 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though of course in traditional theory the company should be run for the shareholders rather than the executives. It's a bit of a flaw in the system if they can extract large bonuses while tanking the stock. Maybe the government could write some laws that bonuses have to be held in escrow for a while to check the company survives. (And in more modern views maybe you should worry about the other stakeholders too.)

Active shareholders are happy to see their stock value rise to unsustainable levels and then selling them to the next suckers. Passive shareholders, well, don't participate on decision making. Expect this feature to get worse with increased share of index funds. But not by much, because most people never were active anyway.

"Expect this feature to get worse with increased share of index funds."

How so? Index funds buy when the shares are high and sell when they're low.

Re: The Toyota Way

#80

Post by kesor »

theothermkn wrote: post #30
thendrill wrote: post #3

That shit works only if you are Japanese.... Have Japanese mentality and work culture... Also your product is a car.. Or something tangable made on a production line.... Agile IS the Toyota way... Or at least tries to be

A sibling post mentioned Deming, the American who's WWII work on bomber production formed the basis for "The Toyota Way," and not in some indirect way, either. Deming went to Japan at the behest of the US to help them rebuild their economy after WWII.

I read somewhere that the context for this was all the men returning from WW II. While it was mostly women worked in the factories during the war and had to find ways to improve production, Deming ideas were solid. But as soon as the egoistic men came back from the frontlines after the war, he was kinda "pushed away" because no one in the US wanted to listen to him anymore. Which naturally was a big mistake as it turned out in the 70s when Japanese car manufacturing made American cars look like garbage.
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