The Toyota Way

2023-08-07

The Toyota way is a set of 14 principles and behaviours that underlie Toyota’s managerial approach. Many of these principals apply to management, parenting, personal productivity and being an employee. There is lots of wisdom in these 14 principles.

Section 1 - Long-Term Philosophy

  1. Long-Term Philosophy Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term financial goals. People need purpose to find motivation and establish goals.

Section 2 - The Right Process Will Produce the Right Results

  1. Bring problems to the surface Work processes are redesigned to eliminate waste (muda) through the process of continuous improvement — kaizen.

The seven types of muda are:

Muda (無駄) = a Japanese word meaning “futility; uselessness; wastefulness”.

Kaizen (改善) = is a concept referring to business activities that continuously improve all functions and involve all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers. The Sino-Japanese word for “improvement”.

  1. Pull A method where a process signals its predecessor that more material is needed. The pull system produces only the required material after the subsequent operation signals a need for it. This process is necessary to reduce overproduction.

  2. Level out the workload (heijunka). (Work like the tortoise, not the hare). Production levelling, also known as production smoothing or – by its Japanese original term – heijunka (平準化), is a technique for reducing the mura (unevenness) which in turn reduces muda (waste).

  3. Fix Problems - Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time. Quality takes precedence (Jidoka). Any employee in the Toyota Production System has the authority to stop the process to signal a quality issue.

  4. Standardized tasks and processes are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee empowerment. Although Toyota has a bureaucratic system, the way that it is implemented allows for continuous improvement (kaizen) from the people affected by that system. It empowers the employee to aid in the growth and improvement of the company.

  5. Use visual control so no problems are hidden. Included in this principle is the 5S Program - steps that are used to make all work spaces efficient and productive, help people share work stations, reduce time looking for needed tools and improve the work environment.

  1. Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes. Technology is pulled by manufacturing, not pushed to manufacturing.

Section 3 - Add Value to the Organization by Developing Your People

  1. Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy, and teach it to others. Without constant attention, the principles will fade. The principles have to be ingrained, it must be the way one thinks. Employees must be educated and trained: they have to maintain a learning organization.

  2. Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company’s philosophy. Teams should consist of 4-5 people and numerous management tiers. Success is based on the team, not the individual.

  3. Respect your extended network of partners and suppliers by challenging them and helping them improve. Toyota treats suppliers much like they treat their employees, challenging them to do better and helping them to achieve it. Toyota provides cross functional teams to help suppliers discover and fix problems so that they can become a stronger, better supplier.

Section 4 — Continuously Solving Root Problems Drives Organizational Learning

  1. Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation (Genchi Genbutsu). Toyota managers are expected to “go-and-see” operations. Without experiencing the situation firsthand, managers will not have an understanding of how it can be improved. Furthermore, managers use Tadashi Yamashima’s (President, Toyota Technical Center (TTC)) ten management principles as a guideline:

Genchi Genbutsu (現地現物) = literally translates “real location, real thing”

  1. Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options; implement decisions rapidly (nemawashi).

Nemawashi (根回し) = Japanese means an informal process of quietly laying the foundation for some proposed change or project, by talking to the people concerned, gathering support and feedback, and so forth. It is considered an important element in any major change, before any formal steps are taken, and successful nemawashi enables changes to be carried out with the consent of all sides.

  1. Become a learning organization through relentless reflection (hansei) and continuous improvement (kaizen). The process of becoming a learning organization involves criticizing every aspect of what one does. The general problem solving technique to determine the root cause of a problem includes:

Hansei (反省, “self-reflection”) is a central idea in Japanese culture, meaning to acknowledge one’s own mistake and to pledge improvement. This is similar to the German proverb Selbsterkenntnis ist der erste Schritt zur Besserung, where the closest translation to English would be “Insight into oneself is the first step to improvement”.

Notes