An Introduction To The Toyota Production System

so Alerian we thank you for taking the time to talk to me and to explain how I ought to do things today this is going to be very valuable for the students at Waterloo now the first thing that I want to do is just to ask you to introduce yourself and describe your role at Toyota I'm Lewis omnia I'm a manager at Toyota I have been here for 25 years my experience has been primarily in manufacturing and assembly my current role the last year and a half has been as the manager of the PPS group and manufacturing skills development my group has PPS trainers and our role is to train the different levels of the organization on the tools for PPS and how to apply those tools in their everyday job this is Larry use one of our TPS certified trainers hi everyone my name's Larry Edwards production group leader originally I've been here 22 years I joined the TPS team about a year ago and I'm learning PPS and in the process of being certified in TPS and my background Act emmc is body shop I've worked all my working life and experience here at TMC has there thank you and there you populate CCS the Toyota Production system can you describe what the main elements of that are yeah so GPS is reducing costs by thoroughly eliminating weight which we call muda the main element we actually constructed into a house on actual house but a symbolic house so the foundation of that house is standardized work the two pillars that support the house is just in time and judoka and the roof is continuous improvement hi Dan and Timo those are the elements of determination thank you end and what's unique about the Toyota Production system so what makes it unique in what differs it from traditional production system is our manufacturing method we have a more dynamic method we build to attack time which is the customer demand and by doing so we're able to make changes and to be flexible we then follow the TPS principles that we just discussed in the house and by doing that it exposes problems and and mistakes in our system and then from there we then problem solved by using Chi Dan and as a result waste is eliminated and costs are reduced and when you do that you make profits what I'm using one of the strengths of our system is the respect for people and allowing the team members the opportunity to be engaged and make improvements to their process our team members are best asset they know their job better than anyone else so they're our best resource for including their process and making things better and it's creating that culture and having the response that makes it very important so can you explain Justin time what is is in how you apply it via so just-in-time refers to manufacturing and conveyance it is what is needed when it is needed and in the exact amount needed it eliminates various leutis sub weight and enhances work efficiency and truly it does it just notifies us of problems with material flow we apply it here at TM MC through several contexts one being continuous flow processing so that's when we keep inventory low and we produce one piece at a time to we we follow a full system and introduced Kanban so parts are pulled from earlier processes by latter processes only as they are needed okay we run to a tack time so we build to the customer demand and we follow heijunka which is actually pronounced pain Jukka and that's leveling of volume and variety on just in time ultimately it's knowing how much you need to produce making sure that you have the necessary parts to produce that amount but not carrying extra parts and extra stock and also making sure that when you use up apart the new part is ordered it's much like in a household you don't go buying more than what you need in the kitchen if you buy too much maybe they're spoils or you're paying out too much money so we just want the right amount at the right time for living thank you and times quality managed in the Toyota Production system what are the main elements that allow you to produce the very reliable cars that you make so we manage it through a concept called judoka it's a concept which notifies us of problems with the process the objective is to ensure we pass 100% good quality on to the next process or the next our customers the main elements of judoka are fixed position stop so that's a way for our team members to stop the line when abnormalities occur and we give the team members that ability they have a brain they're not robots okay - we follow we have an and on system so team members ability to call for assistance when they when they need immediate action - problems so it's all for help and we and number three pokey Oaks it's an error proofing or error proofing device that will detect abnormalities so we give our automation our equipment the intelligence to be able to detect abnormalities and when they do they stop because we don't want outflow or defects so building quality into the process whether it's the team member or the equipment if there's an abnormality that occurs the team member has the ability to stop the line and correct it and equipment tires and the ability to detect it and soft until somebody goes in and confirms our objective build it into the process not to send the vehicles off line where they're going to be repaired repairing something after it's manufactured means that you have to disassemble apart and take things apart and that's just waste and ultimately you get a better product if you do it right the first time that's one and the sudden muda that's part of what you do then you talk about the seven images for me so in the TPS world there are seven identified motors let me see if I can keep them in order here we actually have an acronym because c-calm with as a way of recalling it so a mood of Correction so anytime you have to revisit something correct it it costs money that's a waste there's mood up conveyance ideally you only want to move product once so if you have to move in more than once that's a muda muda of overproduction so producing more than than is required and that's the worst of all seven Buddha's because it incorporates all the other six into that one so where am I own motion so muda of motion and I think that's pretty self-explanatory in a sense that if you have to reach over here to grab something that takes time you got to walk over there to pick up a part that takes time so we try to look at reducing the motion of the team members w-wait muda waiting so ideally you want our cycle time to meet the task time and if there's it doesn't meet then there's a portion of waiting and that's that's not efficient there's mood of inventory muda what happens there is inventory actually masks problems and it creates a longer lead time and cost money load of inventory with the processing so muda processing and that is so we have standards and those standards are there for a reason and if you have to do something above and beyond that standard and it is it is wasteful to do so bill to the standard that makes me think so we want to be as efficient as we can be and obviously Luda we need waste makes us inefficient and ultimately if we have a manufacturing process that's not efficient those extra costs need to be incorporated into the price of the product and the customer doesn't want to pay extra money for waste so by being efficient were able to bring our costs down effectively reduce the cost and improve profit as an organization so eliminating waste is one of our biggest challenges and we take a lot of effort great so what's your approach to managing people in the Toyota Production system how do you manage them to work within the system we manage our people by following the two main pillars of the Toyota Way which are continuous improvement and respect for people we are never satisfied with where we're at and we're always trying to make things better we respect people and believe that success of Toyota is created by individual work and teamwork all team members at Toyota at every level are expected to use these two values in their daily work and interactions I mentioned earlier without respect for people that allowing them to have a voice in how we set up processes of what they do every day so allowing team members the opportunity to Kaizen make improvements and be recognized for what they do it creates a better work environment and makes people better alright thank you and tell you which are known for their involvement of employees and continuous improvement can you say a bit about how that works you started to talk about it there because you say a bit more but how do this work so ok so we always have like I said the key members have the ability to make suggestions and making provements in their process we have many different ways of doing that at emmc its part of our everyday culture so P members on daily basis made recommendations and improvements to their team leaders to their group leaders and we go through a process of making sure that we understand what the changes are and that their beneficials and how we adopt those changes on top of that we also have programs with our suggestion program which allow the team members to fill out documents how they want to make improvement from that it goes through approval process and few members get rewarded and compensated for making improvements in the workplace so that will respect and allowing few numbers to make a difference keep part of the Toyota Production yeah so you know when we identify Cayenne points we involve our team members I know Lewis question already but you know we don't seek outside sources to come in and try to fix our problems we give our team members of voice and we value their input we consider them master craftsmen and experts of their processes and if there's something wrong they will typically tell you and they will tell you probably how to fix it too so they you know there is a vested interest to get involved you know because in most cases it can have an impact in their daily working lives so I think that's persons ask is the one doing the job absolutely I had to tell you to manage it supply chain what are the main aspects of the approach that's taken to that so 302 began sharing TPS with its suppliers in the 1990s the thinking was if they fail we fail we rely on their success for our success it only makes sense to consider them an extension of our Toyota plant our customers don't care if it's a supplier part that has failed them because of our logo that's on the car so we have a dedicated team here at TM MC that works alongside our suppliers and they challenge them and support them to improve in all aspects of GPS it's a great working relationship with mutual respect and Trust thank you so if we view our suppliers as our partners we're suppliers successful we're successful as a TPS group here sometimes we do work with suppliers either go to their plants or we have the suppliers come here and we teach them the GPS fundamentals the tools on how to capture for a condition look for areas for improvement and we've had good results and good feedback from the suppliers whenever we work with them on having them learn the TPS methods and how they can apply it and it's a great working relationship they're our partners and we all wanna be successful Thanks thank you and looking for the future innovation and change seems to be happening more rapidly today due to advances in technology and globalization and things like that a husband Toyota respond to that is it likely to change the Toyota Production system well you got to remember PPS originated from a little boy Sakichi Toyoda who wanted to make his mother's life easier while she was operating you know GPS is based on human dignity and respect for people if there is a way to make the lives of our team members and customers better then we will do so Toyota responds by funding a research and development division which is always looking at new innovation new technology as for the Toyota Production system it doesn't change it just gets enhanced technology's always going to pay part of manufacturing there's always change improvements whether it be robotics the technology that goes into the vehicle but PPS the fundamentals don't change we look at what are the ways that we can make improvements and how can we do more efficient and be better still about capturing the current condition trying to identify where there's waste of areas for improvement and then using the TPS tools that we learn to go and make that improvement so whether we're making that improvements on a 2 number that's in the process doing everything manually whether we're looking at making that improvement on a robot that works on its own and how we can make that robots motions more efficient or improve the quality but PPS fundamentals are the same still about making it better so bring on technology we love technology but we can always work on it and CBS would still be thank you other companies have tried to apply ppl and struggled with it you've any idea Pfizer thing well change is a hard thing if you've been doing something the same way over and over and over you're going to tend to believe your way is the right way we're all creatures of habit and at times have become hostage to routine applying TPS to an established company would require some persistence probably the same persistence as a eto know the father of TPS who had to implement judoka and just-in-time concepts back in his day on his production board the culture would have to change and that's a big thing and I don't know and sometimes it's a hard thing to hurt you got to remember TPS wasn't born overnight we have evolved over under plus years and we trained our team members the first day they stepped foot in here and at TM MC had orientation that's what it all begins for them my experience is manufacturing this Toyota so I can't speak for what other companies when other businesses go through and write the change but what I can say here is the culture it's that mindset that he's build and everyone making change is something that happens here every day in thousands of times a day in a plant like this so because we have that culture I don't see it as being something that's very difficult GPS is very simple the application of GPS is the difficult part and a lot of that is because we get Larry mentioned usually doing things in a certain way and to change is the difficult part of it with PBS it's that mindset of being open to change understanding what your current condition is and from that seeing where you can make improvements too often now when people want to make change they try to get from the start to the change that they want and all in one step but GPS are making changes all of those small increments making small change here fixing this problem moving to the next problem moving to the next problem and that's not as easy as saying we want to implement TPS that's creating the culture and the mindset to get you there and that's our strength our team members are very engaged in making change and as an organization we promote making change in having team members provide in plan what can organizations do to apply the TPS better you know we can preach TPS and talk about all its benefits but if you don't have the commitment and persistence to see it through it won't work you will require complete buy-in from top-level management all the way down to the production floor the good thing about TPS is that it's everyone's responsibility my advice would be to chip away at that at the stone introduce aspects of TPS in doses that they can handle let them see the improvement let them understand it and then stabilize it create the new standard then give a little bit more if you go in too strong guns-a-blazing it's going to be likely overwhelming and it's going to fail we get team members the opportunity to make change all the time but change can also be a disruption if it's not done properly so when we make change to make sure that everyone agrees on that change and that that change becomes the new standard and we have a standard one of the key points is that we didn't follow that standard not only the person making the changes but everybody in the organization Foley and you got to remember to the foundation of TPS is standardization starts at the bottom thank you and I've just got one more question which is the people who are watching this video may move on to careers in manufacturing or service operations do you have any advice that you would like to give them as they do that the goal of every company is to make profits I think if you own the company you'd want to make a profit so whatever company you choose to work for treat it as if it was yours look for ways to improve and prove operations and become more efficient the success of the company you work for will in turn impact your personal growth and your professional careers we all want long-term stable employment so we can secure a futures for a good life my advice is be open to change embrace team work and be a team player yourself thank you I thought manufacturing is a little exciting so I never thought I'd be in this when I graduated from school proves the exciting lots of challenge great environment to work in with lots of opportunity my recommendation regardless of whether you go on a manufacturing or any other type of rail job is to really take the time to understand what your role in that organization and your work is and how you can make improvements as long as you continuously keep and improving your your job it comes with satisfaction it's rewarding and overall if they give that job satisfaction and make you happy in life that's what it's all about well Larry and Louise both of you thank you very much for taking the time to talk to me today this is going to be shown to many students at the University of Waterloo and may influence their activity in many companies in the future so what you've done is very valuable and thank you very much thank you

Channel: Peter Carr

Views: 32,922

Rating: 4.8752999 out of 5

Keywords: Toyota Production System, Toyota, lean manufacturing, university of waterloo, peter carr, be603

Id: wk-Mz_4Rzx0

Length: 23min 57sec (1437 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 23 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/metrush]

I worked here for almost a year and saw how well Japanese companies are managed. The plant is located in Cambridge, Ontario. Even if you're not on the scale of them you can learn a lot from how they run their factory. The Canadian branch of Toyota is called TMMC if you want to search for more information on how they manage their business