I listened to this Audio CD not realizing that the book is not the original The Toyota Way. But it does have a 4.8 rating on Amazon—better than the original. I quite enjoyed the stories and lessons in the book, and had quite a few takeaways.
The main premise of the book is that employees should be empowered to make the changes that will improve processes and quality. Toyota takes this principle and it’s values very seriously.
Learn. Become expert. Have the task become so trivial, that you can focus on improving it.
Toyota’s production processes are compared in an analogy to water flowing over rocks. When the water is deep, the rocks, or flaws in the system, are hardly noticeable. When the water level is low, you can clearly see the rocks and how the water flows around them. Water is like the inventory buildup at each step in the production process. If you tend to already have a backlog of ready inputs to your step in the system, you need to start having a process for how to manage them, and it actually slows you down, not to mention having so much product partially complete instead of shipped. It’s a really counterintuitive approach, because I would have thought that larger amounts of inventory in the process would be desirable, so that you have no down time. But that’s solving the symptom rather than the cause. Having each “rock” pause your output, will cause you to get rid of all those rocks, and in the long run have a smooth-running system.
Look for ways in which you can avoid waste, and add value.
Another striking feature of the Toyota Way is how leaders go through such deep training to know the right way to behave in situations. Managers will show up at a new job, and be asked to “stand in a circle and observe.” Despite protesting the waste of time, they ended up having many insights from going to see, and deeply understanding.
There was a chapter about how bottoms up the approach is, where the managers simply ask questions, and allow the expert employee to come up with solutions. There was a situation where they completely redefined a complicated system for delivering parts from one step to the next, which crossed team boundaries, and eventually became a best practice throughout the rest of the company.
Perfection should be the goal.
There is great value in understanding the company most-admired for its production processes. I plan to read the original soon. I recommend the book and give it 4 stars.
Brian's Learning Journal 