Toyota Production System Engineering
Understanding Core Concepts That Drive Toyota
Toyota is a world leader in car manufacturing and is well known to have developed a system of principles that keep them ahead of their competitors. Understanding The Toyota Way is more than copying down Toyota’s list of 14 management principles; it involves careful consideration of how Toyota has achieved a company-wide standard of excellence. In part this achievement is by teaching every employee to be a leader and intrinsically motivated to better the company. The other part of this achievement is the constant struggle to continuously improve every level of the company from increasing quality of suppliers to creating standards of bolting seats to cars (Kaizen). The following paragraphs will discuss four main points from The Toyota Way that apply to systems engineering.
Using a long-term philosophy, Toyota is able to overcome short-term hardships. A main point of The Toyota Way is learning how Toyota makes careful considerations for the future, sometimes allowing the company to suffer in the present for long-term gains. A wonderful example of this was the development of the Prius. The company recognized a changing world market towards the end of the millennium and grouped a team of experts to design the system that would later be known as the Prius. During development, Toyota executives pushed the team of experts almost to their breaking point. At one point, several of the project members went home and told their families that they needed to move closer to the Toyota offices so they could work longer hours. In developing a complex system, long-term consideration is essential even if it causes some short-term suffering. Whether focused on long or short-term goals, it is important to take time to create the right process in order to achieve the best product.
Designing the right process produces the right results. When designing a complex system, it is necessary to take the time to build the right process (right
Toyota is a world leader in car manufacturing and is well known to have developed a system of principles that keep them ahead of their competitors. Understanding The Toyota Way is more than copying down Toyota’s list of 14 management principles; it involves careful consideration of how Toyota has achieved a company-wide standard of excellence. In part this achievement is by teaching every employee to be a leader and intrinsically motivated to better the company. The other part of this achievement is the constant struggle to continuously improve every level of the company from increasing quality of suppliers to creating standards of bolting seats to cars (Kaizen). The following paragraphs will discuss four main points from The Toyota Way that apply to systems engineering.
Using a long-term philosophy, Toyota is able to overcome short-term hardships. A main point of The Toyota Way is learning how Toyota makes careful considerations for the future, sometimes allowing the company to suffer in the present for long-term gains. A wonderful example of this was the development of the Prius. The company recognized a changing world market towards the end of the millennium and grouped a team of experts to design the system that would later be known as the Prius. During development, Toyota executives pushed the team of experts almost to their breaking point. At one point, several of the project members went home and told their families that they needed to move closer to the Toyota offices so they could work longer hours. In developing a complex system, long-term consideration is essential even if it causes some short-term suffering. Whether focused on long or short-term goals, it is important to take time to create the right process in order to achieve the best product.
Designing the right process produces the right results. When designing a complex system, it is necessary to take the time to build the right process (right