toyota kaizen case study pdf

(Still) learning from Toyota

In the two years since I retired as president and CEO of Canadian Autoparts Toyota (CAPTIN), I’ve had the good fortune to work with many global manufacturers in different industries on challenges related to lean management. Through that exposure, I’ve been struck by how much the Toyota production system has already changed the face of operations and management, and by the energy that companies continue to expend in trying to apply it to their own operations.

Yet I’ve also found that even though companies are currently benefiting from lean, they have largely just scratched the surface, given the benefits they could achieve. What’s more, the goal line itself is moving—and will go on moving—as companies such as Toyota continue to define the cutting edge. Of course, this will come as no surprise for any student of the Toyota production system and should even serve as a challenge. After all, the goal is continuous improvement.

Room to improve

The two pillars of the Toyota way of doing things are kaizen (the philosophy of continuous improvement) and respect and empowerment for people, particularly line workers. Both are absolutely required in order for lean to work. One huge barrier to both goals is complacency. Through my exposure to different manufacturing environments, I’ve been surprised to find that senior managers often feel they’ve been very successful in their efforts to emulate Toyota’s production system—when in fact their progress has been limited.

The reality is that many senior executives—and by extension many organizations—aren’t nearly as self-reflective or objective about evaluating themselves as they should be. A lot of executives have a propensity to talk about the good things they’re doing rather than focus on applying resources to the things that aren’t what they want them to be.

When I recently visited a large manufacturer, for example, I compared notes with a company executive about an evaluation tool it had adapted from Toyota. The tool measures a host of categories (such as safety, quality, cost, and human development) and averages the scores on a scale of zero to five. The executive was describing how his unit scored a five—a perfect score. “Where?” I asked him, surprised. “On what dimension?”

“Overall,” he answered. “Five was the average.”

When he asked me about my experiences at Toyota over the years and the scores its units received, I answered candidly that the best score I’d ever seen was a 3.2—and that was only for a year, before the unit fell back. What happens in Toyota’s culture is that as soon as you start making a lot of progress toward a goal, the goal is changed and the carrot is moved. It’s a deep part of the culture to create new challenges constantly and not to rest when you meet old ones. Only through honest self-reflection can senior executives learn to focus on the things that need improvement, learn how to close the gaps, and get to where they need to be as leaders.

A self-reflective culture is also likely to contribute to what I call a “no excuse” organization, and this is valuable in times of crisis. When Toyota faced serious problems related to the unintended acceleration of some vehicles, for example, we took this as an opportunity to revisit everything we did to ensure quality in the design of vehicles—from engineering and production to the manufacture of parts and so on. Companies that can use crises to their advantage will always excel against self-satisfied organizations that already feel they’re the best at what they do.

A common characteristic of companies struggling to achieve continuous improvement is that they pick and choose the lean tools they want to use, without necessarily understanding how these tools operate as a system. (Whenever I hear executives say “we did kaizen ,” which in fact is an entire philosophy, I know they don’t get it.) For example, the manufacturer I mentioned earlier had recently put in an andon system, to alert management about problems on the line. 1 1. Many executives will have heard of the andon cord, a Toyota innovation now common in many automotive and assembly environments: line workers are empowered to address quality or other problems by stopping production. Featuring plasma-screen monitors at every workstation, the system had required a considerable development and programming effort to implement. To my mind, it represented a knee-buckling amount of investment compared with systems I’d seen at Toyota, where a new tool might rely on sticky notes and signature cards until its merits were proved.

An executive was explaining to me how successful the implementation had been and how well the company was doing with lean. I had been visiting the plant for a week or so. My back was to the monitor out on the shop floor, and the executive was looking toward it, facing me, when I surprised him by quoting a series of figures from the display. When he asked how I’d done so, I pointed out that the tool was broken; the numbers weren’t updating and hadn’t since Monday. This was no secret to the system’s operators and to the frontline workers. The executive probably hadn’t been visiting with them enough to know what was happening and why. Quite possibly, the new system receiving such praise was itself a monument to waste.

Room to reflect

At the end of the day, stories like this underscore the fact that applying lean is a leadership challenge, not just an operational one. A company’s senior executives often become successful as leaders through years spent learning how to contribute inside a particular culture. Indeed, Toyota views this as a career-long process and encourages it by offering executives a diversity of assignments, significant amounts of training, and even additional college education to help prepare them as lean leaders. It’s no surprise, therefore, that should a company bring in an initiative like Toyota’s production system—or any lean initiative requiring the culture to change fundamentally—its leaders may well struggle and even view the change as a threat. This is particularly true of lean because, in many cases, rank-and-file workers know far more about the system from a “toolbox standpoint” than do executives, whose job is to understand how the whole system comes together. This fact can be intimidating to some executives.

Senior executives who are considering lean management (or are already well into a lean transformation and looking for ways to get more from the effort and make it stick) should start by recognizing that they will need to be comfortable giving up control. This is a lesson I’ve learned firsthand. I remember going to CAPTIN as president and CEO of the company and wanting to get off to a strong start. Hoping to figure out how to get everyone engaged and following my initiatives, I told my colleagues what I wanted. Yet after six or eight months, I wasn’t getting where I wanted to go quickly enough. Around that time, a Japanese colleague told me, “Deryl, if you say ‘do this’ everybody will do it because you’re president, whether you say ‘go this way,’ or ‘go that way.’ But you need to figure out how to manage these issues having absolutely no power at all.”

So with that advice in mind, I stepped back and got a core group of good people together from all over the company—a person from production control, a night-shift supervisor, a manager, a couple of engineers, and a person in finance—and challenged them to develop a system. I presented them with the direction but asked them to make it work.

And they did. By the end of the three-year period we’d set as a target, for example, we’d dramatically improved our participation rate in problem-solving activities—going from being one of the worst companies in Toyota Motor North America to being one of the best. The beauty of the effort was that the team went about constructing the program in ways I never would have thought of. For example, one team member (the production-control manager) wanted more participation in a survey to determine where we should spend additional time training. So he created a storyboard highlighting the steps of problem solving and put it on the shop floor with questionnaires that he’d developed. To get people to fill them out, his team offered the respondents a hamburger or a hot dog that was barbecued right there on the shop floor. This move was hugely successful.

Another tip whose value I’ve observed over the years is to find a mentor in the company, someone to whom you can speak candidly. When you’re the president or CEO, it can be kind of lonely, and you won’t have anyone to talk with. I was lucky because Toyota has a robust mentorship system, which pairs retired company executives with active ones. But executives anywhere can find a sounding board—someone who speaks the same corporate language you do and has a similar background. It’s worth the effort to find one.

Finally, if you’re going to lead lean, you need knowledge and passion. I’ve been around leaders who had plenty of one or the other, but you really need both. It’s one thing to create all the energy you need to start a lean initiative and way of working, but quite another to keep it going—and that’s the real trick.

Room to run

Even though I’m retired from Toyota, I’m still engaged with the company. My experiences have given me a unique vantage point to see what Toyota is doing to push the boundaries of lean further still.

For example, about four years ago Toyota began applying lean concepts from its factories beyond the factory floor—taking them into finance, financial services, the dealer networks, production control, logistics, and purchasing. This may seem ironic, given the push so many companies outside the auto industry have made in recent years to drive lean thinking into some of these areas. But that’s very consistent with the deliberate way Toyota always strives to perfect something before it’s expanded, looking to “add as you go” rather than “do it once and stop.”

Of course, Toyota still applies lean thinking to its manufacturing operations as well. Take major model changes, which happen about every four to eight years. They require a huge effort—changing all the stamping dies, all the welding points and locations, the painting process, the assembly process, and so on. Over the past six years or so, Toyota has nearly cut in half the time it takes to do a complete model change.

Similarly, Toyota is innovating on the old concept of a “single-minute exchange of dies” 2 2. Quite honestly, the single-minute exchange of dies aspiration is really just that—a goal. The fastest I ever saw anyone do it during my time at New United Motor Manufacturing (NUMMI) was about 10 to 15 minutes. and applying that thinking to new areas, such as high-pressure injection molding for bumpers or the manufacture of alloy wheels. For instance, if you were making an aluminum-alloy wheel five years ago and needed to change from one die to another, that would require about four or five hours because of the nature of the smelting process. Now, Toyota has adjusted the process so that the changeover time is down to less than an hour.

Finally, Toyota is doing some interesting things to go on pushing the quality of its vehicles. It now conducts surveys at ports, for example, so that its workers can do detailed audits of vehicles as they are funneled in from Canada, the United States, and Japan. This allows the company to get more consistency from plant to plant on everything from the torque applied to lug nuts to the gloss levels of multiple reds so that color standards for paint are met consistently.

The changes extend to dealer networks as well. When customers take delivery of a car, the salesperson is accompanied by a technician who goes through it with the new owner, in a panel-by-panel and option-by-option inspection. They’re looking for actionable information: is an interior surface smudged? Is there a fender or hood gap that doesn’t look quite right? All of this checklist data, fed back through Toyota’s engineering, design, and development group, can be sent on to the specific plant that produced the vehicle, so the plant can quickly compare it with other vehicles produced at the same time.

All of these moves to continue perfecting lean are consistent with the basic Toyota approach I described: try and perfect anything before you expand it. Yet at the same time, the philosophy of continuous improvement tells us that there’s ultimately no such thing as perfection. There’s always another goal to reach for and more lessons to learn.

Deryl Sturdevant, a senior adviser to McKinsey, was president and CEO of Canadian Autoparts Toyota (CAPTIN) from 2006 to 2011. Prior to that, he held numerous executive positions at Toyota, as well as at the New United Motor Manufacturing (NUMMI) plant (a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors), in Fremont, California.

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What is kaizen and how does Toyota use it?

What is Kaizen? It is one of the core principles of the Toyota Production System.

The English translation is, broadly speaking, continuous improvement . ‘Kai’ means ‘change’ and ‘zen’ means ‘for the better’. It is a philosophy that helps to ensure maximum quality, the elimination of waste, and improvements in efficiency, both in terms of equipment and work procedures.

Kaizen improvements in standardised work help maximise productivity at every worksite. Standardised work involves following procedures consistently and therefore employees can identify the problems promptly.

Kaizen in action at Toyota Motor Manufacturing UK

Within the Toyota Production System, Kaizen humanises the workplace, empowering individual members to identify areas for improvement and suggest practical solutions.

The focused activity surrounding this solution is often referred to as a kaizen blitz , while it is the responsibility of each member to adopt the improved standardised procedure and eliminate waste from within the local environment.

Kaizen begins in the early designs of a production line and continues through its lifetime of use by a process of consensus known as Nemawashi – read our explanation here .

Alternatively, see more about the Toyota Production System in our glossary .

Discover the 12 other pillars of the Toyota Production System: Konnyaku Stone Poka-Yoke Hansei Andon Jidoka Just-In-Time Heijunka Kaizen Genchi Genbutsu Nemawashi Kanban Muda, Muri, Mura Genba

The pillars of the Toyota Production System don’t just inform the processes within our own factories and offices. Toyota’s expertise at applying ‘the lean approach’ is highly valued by other industries.

Toyota Manufacturing UK offers Lean Approach Seminars in which team leaders from other businesses are immersed in the philosophy and taught how to apply the techniques and ideas to their own processes.

19 comments.

Hello. I am fascinated by the concept of kaizen. How does is time divided between carrying out manufacturing and improving the manufacturing technique? 90% producing 10% improving for example?

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The Diversity and Reality of Kaizen in Toyota

First Online: 06 October 2018

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Shumpei Iwao 5

Part of the book series: Evolutionary Economics and Social Complexity Science ((EESCS,volume 12))

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In the existing literature, kaizen (continuous improvement) has often been conceived of as the accumulation of similarly small, mutually independent, incremental process innovations that are conducted by workers, work teams, and their leaders. This chapter attempts to observe continuous improvement in a certain factory for a certain period and to show the diversity and reality of kaizen in Toyota. Through longitudinal observations, seven case studies are examined, showing that (1) kaizen consists of a series of innovations with various scales, such as number of stakeholders, amount of investment, and economic outcomes (e.g., cost reduction effect); (2) kaizen sometimes induces small changes in product design and affects the organizational activities of production design as a small-scale product innovation; and (3) kaizen activities sometimes influence other kaizen activities. With regard to these characteristics of kaizen, this study implies that (4) kaizen management needs organizational design. For example, in Toyota’s case, not only work teams but also product/process design engineers contribute to kaizen, and shop floor engineers play a vital role in coordinating between shop floors and engineering departments on the basis of the staff-in-line structure of organizations.

This chapter originally appeared as an article in Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review (EIER) Vol. 14, No. 1 (Iwao 2017 ).

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This article uses the word kaizen as an uncountable noun.

Boer and Gertsen ( 2003 ) define continuous innovation as process and product innovation, but they also think of continuous innovation as relatively small and numerous changes.

Womack et al. ( 1990 ) also studies Takaoka.

Following D’Adderio ( 2011 ), an organizational routine change was deemed to have occurred when an explicit operating procedure was altered.

For example, operational improvement, process/production engineering, product/design engineering, etc. could be included in kaizen projects as innovations.

This is calculated as 12 times 0.5 = 6.

100 yen was equivalent to approximately US$1 in 2015.

Takt is a Japanese-English term used in factories. Takt time means the time needed to assemble one unit.

The hood is the hinged cover over the engine.

The side panel is also called the “side member.”

Of course, a factor not to be overlooked is that the weighted scope of coordination is a kind of investment.

Based on these cases, we can say that kaizen consists of a variable scale of innovations, and we can measure this by the scope of coordination, in addition to the amount of investment and cost reduction effects.

Of course, it is doubtful whether Toyota can always determine the exact extent of coordination needed for kaizen.

The term “line” here means both organizational positions: line and production line.

Mintzberg ( 1980 ) calls an organization resembling staff in line “the Divisionalized Form organization” (p 335). However, here the staff in line is nearer the plant floor than in Mintzberg’s model and is unique in serving two roles.

Interview conducted on February 13, 2014.

The scale of innovations (and variability thereof) is also a function of the scope of innovations because innovative activities in this context are organizational in nature and require coordination.

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Iwao, S. (2018). The Diversity and Reality of Kaizen in Toyota. In: Fujimoto, T., Ikuine, F. (eds) Industrial Competitiveness and Design Evolution. Evolutionary Economics and Social Complexity Science, vol 12. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55145-4_9

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The Contradictions That Drive Toyota’s Success

Hirotaka Takeuchi,
Norihiko Shimizu

Stable and paranoid, systematic and experimental, formal and frank: The success of Toyota, a pathbreaking six-year study reveals, is due as much to its ability to embrace contradictions like these as to its manufacturing prowess.

Reprint: R0806F

Toyota has become one of the world’s greatest companies only because it developed the Toyota Production System, right? Wrong, say Takeuchi, Osono, and Shimizu of Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo. Another factor, overlooked until now, is just as important to the company’s success: Toyota’s culture of contradictions.

TPS is a “hard” innovation that allows the company to continuously improve the way it manufactures vehicles. Toyota has also mastered a “soft” innovation that relates to human resource practices and corporate culture. The company succeeds, say the authors, because it deliberately fosters contradictory viewpoints within the organization and challenges employees to find solutions by transcending differences rather than resorting to compromises. This culture generates innovative ideas that Toyota implements to pull ahead of competitors, both incrementally and radically.

The authors’ research reveals six forces that cause contradictions inside Toyota. Three forces of expansion lead the company to change and improve: impossible goals, local customization, and experimentation. Not surprisingly, these forces make the organization more diverse, complicate decision making, and threaten Toyota’s control systems. To prevent the winds of change from blowing down the organization, the company also harnesses three forces of integration: the founders’ values, “up-and-in” people management, and open communication. These forces stabilize the company, help employees make sense of the environment in which they operate, and perpetuate Toyota’s values and culture.

Emulating Toyota isn’t about copying any one practice; it’s about creating a culture. And because the company’s culture of contradictions is centered on humans, who are imperfect, there will always be room for improvement.

No executive needs convincing that Toyota Motor Corporation has become one of the world’s greatest companies because of the Toyota Production System (TPS). The unorthodox manufacturing system enables the Japanese giant to make the planet’s best automobiles at the lowest cost and to develop new products quickly. Not only have Toyota’s rivals such as Chrysler, Daimler, Ford, Honda, and General Motors developed TPS-like systems, organizations such as hospitals and postal services also have adopted its underlying rules, tools, and conventions to become more efficient. An industry of lean-manufacturing experts have extolled the virtues of TPS so often and with so much conviction that managers believe its role in Toyota’s success to be one of the few enduring truths in an otherwise murky world.

Hirotaka Takeuchi is a professor in the strategy unit of Harvard Business School.
EO Emi Osono ( [email protected] ) is an associate professor;
NS and Norihiko Shimizu ( [email protected] ) is a visiting professor at Hitotsubashi University’s Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy in Tokyo. This article is adapted from their book Extreme Toyota: Radical Contradictions That Drive Success at the World’s Best Manufacturer , forthcoming from John Wiley & Sons.

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Application of Toyota Way Incorporating Kaizen, Kaikaku and 5S in Agricultural Sector

2021, IJRASET

A noble operational framework-2K5S, a modified form of Toyota production system (TPS) incorporating Kaizen, Kaikaku and 5S is introduced in this paper. Kaizen is continuous improvement concept implementing a small step at a time to produce a small or moderate improvement in productivity. Kaikaku is a moderate innovative approach implementing new work method or means to produce a drastic improvement in productivity by eliminating wastes at the same time. The 2K5S is then implemented in the operations of a pineapple farm and a series of case studies are conducted. The outcomes of the case studies have revealed that through the introduction and implementation of the 2K5S operational framework, some significant organisational improvements have been witnessed. Apart from significantly increment in productivity, other advantages achieved including increasing in effectiveness and efficiency in the operational processes, improved visual management of the process, improved operational health and safety and morale of the workers, improved housekeeping, waste elimination and process standardization. The outcomes of this study have demonstrated that 2K5S is a powerful and practical operational framework model which is applicable for agricultural organisation.

Related Papers

International Journal of Scientific Research in Science, Engineering and Technology

International Journal of Scientific Research in Science, Engineering and Technology IJSRSET

The objective of this study is to implement some of the Kaizen and 5S principles borrowed from Toyota's operation management systems and process improvements to help smallholder farmers become more productive and efficient. The paper systematically analyses, categorises, and reviews methodically the published literature. A series of case studies were conducted in an indoor hydroponic farm located in an urban area. The Kaizen and 5S principles in the organization have been implemented and analysed. Based on the outcomes of the case studies, it can be stressed that by the introduction and implementation of the Kaizen and 5S principles brings significant changes and improvements in the organisation in terms of increasing in effectiveness and efficiency in the operational processes, improved visual management of the process, improved safety and morale of the workers, improved housekeeping, waste elimination and standardization. The outcomes of this study have demonstrated that the Kaizen and 5S principles and techniques are equally applicable for agricultural organisations rather than manufacturing sectors.

IAR Consortium

IARCON Journals

Toyota Production System (TPS) is the backbone operational management doctrine that has nurtured and established Toyota to become the world’s greatest automobile manufacturer with a reputation for product quality and reliability. In this paper TPS Kaizen 5-Steps Movement – 5S is simplified and implemented in agriculture-based operations. Two pilot-scale projects implementing TPS in an indoor hydroponics city farm and a pineapple plantation using case study method are described. This paper focuses on the effectiveness of implementing TPS Kaizen 5-Steps Movement – 5S approach in agriculture-based operations. Comparative investigation and analysis of the outcomes before and after implementing TPS Kaizen in particular related to workplace conditions and morale of the workers are conducted. The outcomes of the case studies have witnessed that TPS Kaizen– a proven operational management doctrine for manufacturing industries is equally applicable for agriculture-related operations. Apart from a significant improvement in workplace housekeeping, other obvious advantages achieved include increasing effectiveness and efficiency in the operational processes, improved visual management of the workplace, improved occupational health and safety and morale of the workers, waste elimination, and process standardization.

International Journal for Quality Research

Ardeshir Ahmadi

BOCA GRATIELA DANA

IRJET Journal

In India many small & medium scale industries are present. Lack of productivity, greater lead time, processing time, stock out situation are major problems faced by industry. In order to solve the faced problem, we make a pin point on two major methodology are Kaizen and 5S. Kaizen implementation focuses on reducing the lead time of production by means of which the productivity of industry will be improved & 5S implementation is emphasize on most effective use of space, time, money, energy, and other resources their organization. This Technique reduces problems and bottle neck in the work flow. 5S and kaizen techniques in the small scale industry have been analysed and implemented in a case study of the machine shop. On the basis of the case study, we can brings great changes in the organization.by introducing the 5S and kaizen techniques.

Kanishka Jha

Kaizen is a mixture of two Japanese words which together mean "good change" or "improvement," but it has come to mean "continuous improvement" because of its link with lean systems. Kaizen is harmonizing to Six Sigma. It is a continuous improvement of process, and it is often considered to be the building block of all lean production methods. The ultimate goal of this paper is to increase efficiency and productivity in Industry, by simplifying system, standardization of the processes, reducing waste and incremental improvements by using latest techniques like Kaizen. Every company wants to succeed in that competitive world. Some small improvements lead to perfection but it is not to be reached even though we try to get as close as possible by it again and again.

Badhon Saima , Ariful Ferdous , farasat yasmin

Kaizen is a continuous improvement of process, often is considered to be the building block of all lean production methods. The ultimate objective of this paper is to increase efficiency and productivity in sewing floor of luggage manufacturing plant through system simplification, process standardization, reducing waste and incremental improvements by using modern techniques like Kaizen. By implementing kaizen, line efficiency has been improved up to 7% and Defect per Hundred units has also reduced. For industries, to remain competitive and retain market share in this global market, continuous improvement of manufacturing system processes has become necessary. Kaizen strives to empower the workers, increase worker satisfaction, facilitates a sense of accomplishment, thereby creating a pride of work. It not only ensures that manufacturing processes become leaner and fitter, but eliminate waste where value is added.

Hailu Beyecha

This study was meant to determine the status of the implementation of Kaizen in Asela Malt Factory and account for the improvements and challenges thereof. The design of the study was quantitative research method wherein SPSS was used for analyzing data elicited using questionnaire. The study specifically assessed the effectiveness of the implementation of Kaizen tools such as 5S, Deming Cycle, suggestion system, Fishbone Diagram and Pareto analysis. It was found that the Kaizen tools were implemented inconsistently. In addition the study revealed that there were some improvements with some variations. The study also made it evident that there were some challenges in the due process. Thus, Kaizen tools should be implemented continuously to identify the root causes of the problems, prioritize the problems according to their severity and thereby solve them step-by-step to further improve quality, productivity and profitability through design and innovation.

Agus Suharyanto