Interpretation of "TOYOTA WAY"

Teacher, you have experienced many companies, and are other companies facing the same difficulties in promoting lean production or lean management as us? Do you think we have a series of problems now? It's really difficult for our work to go down. Is there any good solution? "In the process of providing lean management consulting services to companies, business leaders or managers often ask me this question. Indeed, in the process of promoting lean management, enterprises will encounter practical situations that require changes in various aspects such as systems, mechanisms, processes, and systems. Moreover, most enterprises choose to avoid conflicts or make various concessions when facing changes, and the final result is either a failure of the change or a half baked outcome. There is also a saying of two skins. Only a small number of enterprises have obtained real experience, explored management methods suitable for their own characteristics, and operated normally. I am also thinking and researching the issues involved in the project progress.

As we all know, the Toyota Production System, also known as Lean Management, has been well-known in the manufacturing industry for a long time. It has gradually expanded from the automotive and parts fields to the discrete, equipment, process, and even service industries. Moreover, many companies have achieved good results in their transformation and gained significant profits. Similarly, when promoting lean management, some companies focus more on how to use methods, how much manpower, resources, and finances to invest, and how long it takes to complete the transformation and transformation of the enterprise. Not paying attention to the degree of compatibility between one's own corporate culture and lean management from the beginning, and identifying areas where corporate culture needs to be transformed to assist in lean management transformation.

Lean management originated from Toyota, and its prototype is the Toyota Production System. People's greater understanding lies in the two pillars of punctuality and automation, logistics and distribution systems linked with suppliers, and other high-quality, efficient, and low-cost tool methods or operating systems. Toyota indeed relies on mature and stable systems to lead the industry for many years. In the initial stage of lean management, enterprises are also deeply attracted by these tools, methods, and management systems. It is easy to overlook the core of Toyota Way, which supports the long-term effectiveness and continuous iteration and upgrading of Toyota production methods. There are many translated versions, but personally, I prefer to understand it as the natural way of the Way. The core of Toyota Way is more in line with the laws of development of things, and I will not elaborate too much here. Like the Toyota Production System, TOYOTA WAY also has two pillars: respect for humanity, wisdom, and improvement. The specific development includes five parts: challenge, improvement, on-site implementation, respect, and teamwork.

Challenge: The company sets challenging goals or tasks for each employee or team, cultivating and helping employees' abilities to achieve these goals; Employees continuously improve their abilities and achieve a sense of satisfaction through individual and team efforts.

Improvement: Establish a sense of dissatisfaction among all employees with the current situation, cultivate the ability to identify and solve problems, unleash intelligence and creativity, and constantly pursue higher added value. Reality: All work must truly see the essence of things, and all work should revolve around reality and be fully implemented with practicality,. The only standard of unified opinion is to respect the present situation: mutual understanding, mutual responsibility, respect for others, and honesty among companies and employees, as well as among employees themselves. Even if there are work errors or mistakes, both superiors and subordinates work together to identify the reasons for the failure and make effective countermeasures, fully respecting the efforts and contributions of employees in the process, and reflecting and improving together.

Teamwork: Respect individual rights, encourage and assist individuals to unleash their creativity. Pay attention to talent cultivation, establish good relationships of mutual understanding, respect, trust, mutual assistance, collaboration, and dedication within the team, and improve team capabilities.

At Toyota, all work revolves around the principles of respecting humanity, wisdom, and improvement. The Toyota system has a self regulating function, which means it can continuously detect system problems and autonomously improve them. This is closely related to the overall system's assistance and TOYOTA WAY. Let's give a specific example to illustrate:

There is a multi skilled worker training program in Toyota's talent development system. The purpose is not just to cultivate enough multi skilled employees to ensure the smooth operation of production. Toyota believes that the greater value of cultivating multi skilled workers lies in: firstly, constantly setting new challenging goals for each employee, so that each employee can grow and improve their sense of achievement and belonging in the process of completing tasks or goals. Secondly, due to the continuous development of multi skilled workers, the team has enough personnel for planned job rotations. Planned job rotation is a regular task for each team, which is a continuous work. The reason is that anyone who repeats the same work in a fixed environment will lose their judgment on the correctness of things over time, which can easily lead to work errors. In this way, every employee will discover some new changes, search for new problems, revise new standards when they engage in new positions, and this is improvement. Thirdly, even established standards should be validated for correctness in a timely manner with the continuous changes in personnel, machinery, materials, methods, and environment, and revised accordingly. So the discovery of change points must be carried out in the actual work process, where operators are closer to and have a better understanding of the site than managers. Fourthly, if the operator discovers problems during the operation process and the improvement measures are adopted, it is a recognition of the operator's work and respect for their efforts. At the same time, submitting improvement proposals can bring personal benefits. Fifth, planned multi skilled worker training is a process in which seniors with job experience use work instruction methods to train younger generations. Mutual trust, mutual assistance, collaboration, and dedication during the process are effective carriers for enhancing team cohesion.

那么看似简单的一个多能工培养机制，并不只是简单的为了保证生产稳定性，机制的建立与不断完善是建立在企业价值观的基础上。与之相通的改善提案、QC小组活动、职业生涯规划、工作教导方法等等，在这里不再一一列举。

精益管理的核心是以最小的投入创造最大的价值，过程中强调客户意识、标准意识、问题意识、并持续改善。那么TOYOTA WAY 对于TPS的有效支撑在于，确立了在以人为本的核心价值观上构筑企业运营系统，同时运营系统也在为TOYOTA不断的培养具备核心价值观的人才。企业在推进精益管理变革中，确立以人为本，持续改善的企业价值观尤为重要。以下几个方面的建议可供参考。第一，企业在进行精益管理系统导入决策时，切忌只看眼前收益，不做长远规划。第二，生产运营系统分阶段导入精益管理的同时，改善提案，班组建设，职业生涯通道建设、人才育成等支持系统要分阶段匹配性导入。第三，精益管理导入过程中，企业全员践行尊重人性，智慧与改善的核心价值观。

信息来源：天津爱波瑞科技发展有限公司