Toyota Production System

The Toyota Production System is a philosophy of manufacturing that Toyota credits with its success in producing high-quality automobiles. The system also relies on manufacturing cells, which we have already discussed. Yasu-hiro Monden has documented the system. Many of the features of this system have been copied and modified to fit American companies. The Toyota Production System also serves as a model for lean manufacturing. Womack and Jones advocate extending the Toyota approach to the entire enterprise, including paperwork as well as product processes.  

Monden s theoretical model points to two pillars of the Toyota Production System  

Just-in-time. This means producing the right products in the needed quantities at the right time. 

Autonomation. This is autonomous defect control. This term refers to preventing the passing of defective xmits from one step to another. This avoids the disruptive impact of passed-on defects. 

We can see that both support elimination of the xmexpected events that introduce variability into the supply chain. Supporting these pillars are two complementary concepts. One is the flexible work force. Worker flexibil- 

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The origins of lean manufacturing are often ascribed to the creation of the Toyota Production System (TPS) by the Toyota Motor Corporation. However, the history of lean manufacturing can be traced back to industrial developments which occurred more than 150 years before TPS. The foundation for modern manufacturing was laid by Eli Whitney in 1798 while Whitney is best known for his invention of the cotton gin, it is his invention of interchangeable parts and uniform production which revolutionized mass production (www.EliWhitney.org). 

THREE PILLARS OF JUST-IN-TIME AND THE TOYOTA PRODUCTION SYSTEM... 

Monden, Y. (1998), Toyota Production System An Integrated Approach to Just-in-Time, 3rd Ed., Institute of Industrial Engineers, Atlanta. 

Ohno, T. (1988), Toyota Production System Beyond Large-Scale Production, Productivity Press, Portland, OR. 

Sugimori, Y., Kusunoki, K., Cho, E, and Uchikawa, S. (1977), Toyota Production System and Kanban System Materialization of Just-in-Time and Respect-for-Human System, International Journal of Production Research, Vol. 15, No. 6, pp. 553-564. 

Monden, Y. (1983), Toyota Production System, Industrial Engineering and Management Press, Nor-cross, GA. 

Toted quality (TQ), 1793 Tote, 2087 Tower Records, 263 Tow-line conveyors, 1517 Toxic Releases Inventory (TRI), 594 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), 1164 Toyota Motor Corporation, 16, 37, 493, 544, 551, 555-557, 783, 976 Toyota Production System (TPS), 544-545, 1502... 

TPS, see Toyota Production System TP (transaction processing) monitor, 723 TQIP, see Total quality improvement process... 

Since the origins of the Toyota Motor Company, it is possible to see marked differences, not only in the technical aspect of the production system but, more importantly, in the human aspects of culture. These distinctions rest on the philosophy that people are managed most effectively with two important concepts in mind. These concepts are having a flexible work force and using creative thinking. In other words, the connection of workers to improvement is very explicit and open. Monden (1983) described this of the Toyota Production Systems (TPS) success as,. . capitalizing on worker suggestions. ... 

Toyota s former President Watanabe, interviewed by Stewart and Raman (2007), reaffirmed the two main pillars of the Toyota Way continuous improvement and respect for people which includes critical stakeholders, the employees, the supply partners and the customers. These operational and cultural tenets have been systemized within the Toyota Production System (TPS). Initially, TPS was conceived of as the "3P model of Purpose, Process and People. However, Liker (2004) refined and extended this to the"4P model of the Toyota Way, Philosophy, Processes, People and Partners, and Problem Solving, represented in Figure 4-1. 

Spear, S. J. and Bowen, H. K. (1999). Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System. Harvard Business Review, 77,97-106. 

Another supply chain example is from Toyota. It is appreciable that every activity, connection, and production flow is rigidly documented in a Toyota plant, while Toyota s operations are very flexible and responsive to customer demands [11]. Authors mention that Toyota s rigidity of the operations make the production flexible. The way workers work, interact with each other, learn to improve, and production lines are constructed, are the principles determining how Toyota deals with its operations as experiments and teaching scientific methods to its workers. Spear [10] states that many manufacturers adopt Toyota Production System successfully, while some firms don t have success stories since they only focus on specific TPS tools and practices without recognizing the underlying philosophy. 

Spear SJ, Bowen HK (2006) Decoding the DNA of the Toyota production system. Harvard business review on supply chain management, pp 117-145... 

Ohno T (1988) Toyota production system beyond large-scale production [English translation]. Productivity Press, New York... 

Ohno T (1993) Das toyota-produktionssystem [Introduction to the Toyota production system]. Campus, Frankfurt... 

Shingo S (1989) A study of the Toyota production system. Productivity Press, Chatswood... 

After the end of World War II, Toyota recognized the need to catch up with the competition and this led to the Toyota Production System, which is based on two pillars, just in time and automation or automation with a human touch (Ohno and Bodek 1988). 

Melnyk SA, Carter PL, Dilts DM, Lyth DM (1985) Shop Floor Control. Dow Jones-Irwin, Homewood, IL Ohno T, Bodek N (1988) Toyota production system beyond large-scale production, 1st edn. Productivity Press, Portland. ISBN 0915299143 Pine J (1999) Mass customization the new frontier in business competition. Harvard Business Press, pp 338 Pontrandolfo P, Okogbaa 0-G (1999) Global manufacturing a review and a framework for planning in a global corporation. Int J Prod Res 37(1) 1-19... 

During the past three decades, manufacturing underwent many transformations. The primary process evolutions were total quality management (TQM), theory of constraints (TOC), Lean and the Toyota production system (TPS), and Six Sigma, ft will change even further as companies implement the new processes for digital manufacturing (covered in Chapter 6). 

While low inventory levels are a key outcome of the Toyota Production System, the story does not end there. An important element of the philosophy is to work intelligently and eliminate waste in the entire system. The elimination of waste is termed Muda. There are seven commonly accepted sources of Muda in the extended Lean supply chain ... 

New, S.J. 2007. Celebrating the enigma the continuing puzzle of the Toyota Production System, IntemationalJoumal of Production Research, 45(16), 3545-3554. 

Sugimori, Y., R Cho Kusunoki S. Uchikawa 1977. Toyota production system and Kanban system materialisation of just-in-time and respect-for-human system. International Journal of Production Research, 15(6) 553—564. 

Cell design - Cell design is a component of the Toyota Production System, or lean manufacturing. In the cellular shop floor, machines of different types are located together and the focus shifts to the product, not the means of production. In a cellular paperwork process, small groups do all operations. 

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