Engaging Competent and Willing People in Continuous Improvement

Chapter 6

Nabduan D. 5520212002

Problem Solving May be the Silver Bullet

• The First lesson in Toyota Production System is Problem Solving

• Problem solving is the critical part in Toyota Culture as international standard

• Taiichi Ohno always challenge people in solving problems

• Ohno’s method of teaching called “ Practical Problem Solving ”Training in classroom and shop floor exercises, mostly outside Japan as standard for problem solving method for Toyota

• Toyota Business Practices (TBP)is standard approach to problem solving, but like standardize work rather than limit people’s creativity and aim to be the vehicle for development

Toyota Business Practices (TBP)

• Toyota begin with different underlying consumption that word is dynamics and complex in people more than technology

• To investing in people problem solving skills become main competitive advantages of Toyota and

• Toyoyasupport this skill all levels of organization

At Toyota Everyone is Problem SolverThe traditional structure• Result in strong disconnect

between understanding and decision making at the top

• Because manager just show what top management want to see and not realistic

At Toyota Everyone is Problem Solver

KAIZEN• As the soul of Toyota

Production System

• “ Notion that engineers, managers and line workers collaborate continually to systematize production task and identify incremental changes to make work go more smoothly ”

• Kaizen workshop can reduce the chaos in work process

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Engineer and pilot teams create initial standards learning from past problems1

Engineers

• New product launch they responsible for developing product and process

• “Freshmen class ” engineer will spend 2-3 months working in production by let their hand dirty so they can add value to the actual production

• They also spend several months in selling cars to understand what customers looking for

• Toyota engineer work more naturally with production

• Product engineer in R&D work together with production engineer in manufacturing

Key part is to review all the production difficulties with past model and develop countermeasure for new model

Pilot team

• team leader who taken out from the group and given the responsibility to represent the group in new model start up team to work with engineer.

• Can involve people in the floor to have standardized work

Standardized work is the basis for improvement by the team• Worker = team member• Team leader = defy the stander for team• Job rotation is required to learn all jobs

Works teams work to standard and detect deviations in an atmosphere of the blame2

The Basic 5S is teaching tools in Toyota culture and advance standardization with problem solving

Use standard does not mean every operation is the same• Toyota communicate standard international• “Yakoten” is concept to go and see then

improve upon.

Team members serve as Problem Detectors• “Andon” is system to get triggered person

pulling cord or pushing button when they found mistake then all system stop and other members come to help

• Toyota create culture that team members feel free to shares problems without blames

• “I made it” tickets the solution to reinforce culture of trust between management and team members

• In USA “I made it tickets” attached with drink ticket

Works teams work to standard and detect deviations in an atmosphere of the blame2

Work team contain disruption to production through “even-type” problem solving3

• Problem solving is the main activity for all levels of organization

Event-Type Problem Solving

• Maintenance Kaizen

• To fix the problems when not meet standard

• To correct deviation from standard work

Setting Type Problem Solving

• To improve system

Red line : Start lineYellow line : 70% process lineBenefits • Easy to follow standard and observe

deviation

Toyota support event-type problem solving• To maintain current standard• The suggestion system from team

member• Little pay to observers compare to pay as

compensation to customers

Example• Decide to reduce the

time from 15 min to 14 min to improve performance

Work team improve the standards through “setting type” problem solving4

• Team members of Toyota were trained to solve 3 stages of problem solving

Setting Type Problem Solving• Stable situation• Spirit to continue

improvement• Set new goal• Set new standard• New gap created• New cycle of problem

solving

KEIKAKU• Continuous improvement

• Every level employee looking for opportunities to improve

• System Kaizen (big change)

• Process Kaizen (small change)

Broader problem solving tolevel up the system5

Hoshin KanriProcess• Focus in team member time

on business planning and connect both in development and implementation

Jishuken : Voluntarily self-study ( two weeks ) for ODG• 1st week team present process improvement • 2nd week look at system kaizen

Leader encourage and develop kaizen through guidance, trust and discipline