Post published on March 27, 2010
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Lean and TPS are the path, not the goal.
A former coworker, Mark Rosenthal on his blog,
theLeanThinker, weighed in about the Toyota situation and its impact on Lean and TPS. Mark has some excellent insights. A few people have asked me, what I thought of the Toyota situation, 1) being a Toyota Prius owner and 2) my own experiences with Lean. For group 1) my answer is simple, good product, great reputation and I'd buy again; 2) Lean is suppose to be about continuous improvement, which implies that no one is perfect, there isn't a process that can't be improved. So much of the Toyota situation has been observation and opinion from afar. Some pretty good technical analysis here and there, but for the majority of us we are merely outside observers to the whole situation. An article referenced by Mark, Anatomy of Toyota Accelerator Pedal, was a post by Popular Mechanics which went into greater analysis of the problem. This article correctly stated that 1) there is much more root cause analysis needed, 2) that separating out fact from fiction has been difficult and my personal opinion is 3) thus far Toyota's response has been inadequate to calm the feeding frenzy and at times has added to it. The discussions in the Manufacturing community about how Toyota's problems reflect upon Lean and TPS, at times seems more disappointment by devotees or competitors piling on. Many have and will continue to idolize Toyota as the ideal we should all aspire to. Toyota has been and is a great example of continuous improvement in Manufacturing and the Enterprise and there is the rub, instead of holding up Toyota as the ideal to emulate we should be holding up the goal of continuous improvement everyday. As humans we often idolize individuals who represent the ideal, and in Toyota's case the industry, TPS, that has been developed around a company. We are better served as Manufacturers:
- by focusing our teams on what we need to do in our own organizations and functions to improve.
- by recognizing again that Lean, TPS, is a path not the end goal.
- by understanding at the top of the enterprise, that no reported problem however seemingly insignificant does warrant further investigation.
- by giving our customers an andon, to alert us that there may be a problem which may warrant shutting down the line until the problem is fixed.
When Mark Rosenthal first taught myself and my team, he always made sure we were observant. He'd also ask what did we see? What did we observe on the gemba, in photos, from the perspective of the workers adding that value to the products. He'd ask what did we hear? What were people (employees, customers and potential customers) saying about our products or services. If Toyota and we are to learn anything from this situation I think Mark said it concisely:
...those who are grounded are going to have to get more grounded. Stay focused on the process, the objectives, what is happening right in front of you. Ask the same questions. Tighten up on your teaching skills because the concepts are going to have to make sense in the here and now. No longer will they be blindly accepted because “That is how Toyota does it.”
Posted March 27, 2010 Viewed
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