Toyota: Key Words
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When Key Words Entered the Toyota Lexicon
Kaizen. 1890.
"... constantly improving the machines regardless of what" ...the ... "competition was doing." "... dedicated research to the never-ending search for perfection (Togo, 21)."
How 'Toyoda' Became 'Toyota.' 1936.
Early in its history Toyota used contests to build name recognition in Japan. Their first contest was for a logo for Totoda Automatic Loom Works. Twenty-seven thousand entries were received and one chosen. Toyoda required ten brush strokes in the logo, Toyota eight. Eight was a very lucky number. Risaburo Toyada, the CEO at the time, made the decision to migrate to the lucky spelling - Toyota. (Togo, 73).
Just In Time. 1937.
The first "Just In Time" sign was hung in the automobile factory in Koromo in 1937-38. Toyota had studied the American manufacturing system closely and realized that the Americans were able to stock-pile manufactured components far above daily needs. This required the dedication of capital that Toyota in the thirties did not have. The work-around became ground-breaking: don't manufacture something until you need it. Workers were issued slips of paper each morning with the required number of components needed. When they were complete the worker could go home. No extra stock was kept on hand. (Togo, 79).
Genchi Genbutso Shigi. 1943.
Ask a question of a manager at Toyota and you might be assigned the task of "learning through careful observation."
When Taiichi Ohno, the section chief, moved over from the loom manufacturing operation to the automobile facility, he moved from the ordered and logical to the disrupted manufacturing (because of close military oversight of the production process) at the auto plant. He would require a supervisor with a under-utilized process or machine to stand within a chalk circle to observe for hours just what might be wrong with his operation. Only after careful observation was he allowed to propose a solution to his problem that he then put into operation. (Togo, 115)
Kanban. Circa 1943.
A series of work stations produced automobile parts. A part might be progressively machined and assembled until it was ready for installation on a car. Some of the steps went quickly which might allow for more products to be produced than were needed by the next station.
A "kanban," a slip of paper, showed how many parts a worker was ordering from a previous work station. The kanban limited the number of parts manufactured to the number of parts needed by the next worker. The result? Less inventory and, ultimately, fewer quality problems, as errors were caught more quickly as possibly flawed inventory wasn't allowed to build up. (Togo, 117).
Total Quality. 1953 to 1964.
W. Edward Deming arrived in Japan with the U.S. Bureau of the Census following a career in manufacturing perfecting the Shewhart work on statistical process control. Deming, wanting to stay in the U.S., discoved little interest in applying his techniques. In Japan, however, engineers responded to a series of lectures on quality control. His processes yielded immediate and dramatic increases in quality for Japanese manufacturers.
In the 50's Toyota applied some of Deming's teachings, but it wasn't until the early sixties that the processes were fully applied two ways: it had to become more systematic, and it had to be applied company-wide.
Application was made for the Deming Prize in the early sixties for the Corona manufacturing facility, a plant that hadn't fully implemented the quality program formally. On examination, however, it was realized that the plant, in talking very closely to customers, had added the final step to a quality program. The Deming inspectors concurred, and the Corona plant won the prize in 1964. (Togo, 163).
Togo, Yukiyasu and William Wartman. Against All Odds. The Story of the Toyota Motor Corporation and the Family That Created It. St. Martin's Press. 1993.
Other References on Toyota
Foster, Martin. Toyota's Profit Rises on Shift in Strategy. New York Times. 7 February 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/06/business/worldbusiness/06toyota.html?scp=1&sq=martin+foster&st=nyt
Kim, Chang-Ran. For Toyota, Success Is A Bitter-Sweet Pill. New York Times. 9 February 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/lifestyle-toyota.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
Magee, David. How Toyota Became #1. Leadership Lessons From the World's Greatest Car Company. Portfolio. 2007.
Liker, Jeffrey K. The 14 Principles of the Toyota Way: An Executive Summary of the Culture Behind TPS. http://www.si.umich.edu/ICOS/Liker04.pdf
Liker, Jeffrey K. 14 Management Principles From the World's Greatest Manufacturer. McGraw-Hill. 2006.