The Toyota System | Is it worth it?

Imagine there was a lottery offering real business opportunities instead of cash. You win the biggest prize: a sure position as a manufacturing plant manager. Your phone rings and this is what you hear: “Hi, this is the Teach A Man To Fish Lottery. We would like to congratulate you again on your victory and inform you that we have just learned about another person who picked the same numbers as you, which means that we now have two winners – you and Mr. Fish from Alaska.  Our plan is to give each of you a managerial position in a separate plant.  Since you were the original lottery winner, we offer you the choice of which plant you’d like to work in.”

To make a long story short – you send your trusted manufacturing expert to both of the plants and this is what you learn from her report:

• both plants are located in the same town

• both are producing exactly the same products

• each factory has the same number of employees, however

• factory A offers better quality products than factory B

• factory A delivers its products 2 weeks from the moment they are ordered by the customer while factory B can guarantee no less than one month delivery time

• factory A’s annual sales are double its competitor’s

• factory A has less than half of the amount of money invested in material and work-in-process than factory B

• a quick survey shows that many of the workers in factory A like their jobs and their favorite day of the week is Monday while factory B’s employees’ favorite days of the week are Friday, Saturday and Sunday and the labor turnover in factory B is significantly greater than its local competitor’s

Which factory would you choose to own and manage? Your choice is as easy as the choice between the Toyota Production System over the conventional way of managing production.

The Toyota System site is for you if:

• you are considering the implementation of the Toyota Production System in your factory, office, hospital, post office, etc. but first you want to make sure it’s worth the trouble, or

• you want to understand the System better, or

• you are looking for ways to help your managers or employees understand and appreciate (or even be converted to) the Lean Philosophy, or

• you want to share your experience implementing Lean Manufacturing with the world

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