The following video is a report about Toyota and lean manufacturing techniques that was aired on "Report on Business Television"
It provides a good overview of the Toyota Production System (TPS), which is the overall name for the lean manufacturing techniques Toyota developed, such as kaizen, kanban (JIT) and 5S. Their lean manufacturing techniques have given Toyota the ability to "produce cars the way Dell makes computers. " They have no inventory and they make each car to customer specifications as they are ordered. This is called flexible assembly.
This 4:20 minute video points out that the corporate culture is important. Everyone from the top down must embrace and support TPS principles. For example, unlike other car manufacturers the Toyota production line does not have a lot of quality inspectors at the end of the line. They are not needed because quality goes into the product, and is verified, during production.
It provides a good overview of the Toyota Production System (TPS), which is the overall name for the lean manufacturing techniques Toyota developed, such as kaizen, kanban (JIT) and 5S. Their lean manufacturing techniques have given Toyota the ability to "produce cars the way Dell makes computers. " They have no inventory and they make each car to customer specifications as they are ordered. This is called flexible assembly.
This 4:20 minute video points out that the corporate culture is important. Everyone from the top down must embrace and support TPS principles. For example, unlike other car manufacturers the Toyota production line does not have a lot of quality inspectors at the end of the line. They are not needed because quality goes into the product, and is verified, during production.
Labels: Toyota Production System
posted by Steve Hudgik at
1:28 PM
2 Comments:
Whoa, Dell and Toyota aren't even in the same category, other than having "low inventory." Your post makes it seem like Toyota learned from Dell... Dell doesn't subscribe to the Toyota Production System approach... they basically invented their own system.
From the Lean Blog>
From Evolving Excellence
Mark, thank you for your comment. That was a quote from the video. I think the video was trying to provide a well-known example of "custom manufacturing" -- making each product for a specific customer -- that everyone can relate to. Dell is the most familiar example of this. Thank you for the clarification, I should have pointed out that Dell does not use TPS.
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