Introduction of Toyota Production System to a Pressing Factory
The following inquiry was received from a president of a pressing factory through our homepage.
“Consideration to Introduce Toyota Production System”
We are considering to have periodical training by a consultant to have fundamental improvements in our factory.
Factory Diagnosis is requested to be followed with company-wide kaizen(improvement) to raise the next generation.”
In spite of being merely a two sentences comment, I am sure that anyone who read these words
would notice the president’s will.
We immediately visited the head office and had a TV conference with the president and
managing director, confirming their determination with the factory director and having discussions
on our support.
Since the president had made up his mind before the discussion and having the request for immediate
action, the factory diagnosis was conducted on Friday, following the discussion held on Monday.
(Immdiate arrangement on Mr. Ikemoto’s schedule was difficult.)
The policy of the customers being most important, Mr. Ikemoto from Toyota Motors was as expected.
Based on the idea of solving the problems standing nearest to the customers,
(1)Are there any problem from customer’s point of view? Which matters are to be expected from the customer? Price, delivery timing, or quality?
(2)Are there any cases when the company couldn’t respond to urgent orders from the important customers, due to technological or factory factors?
(3)Are there any cases where the problems occur afterwards concerning quality or cost matters due to having insufficient discussion with the customer?
(4)There is a necessity for front-lines sales to release their complaints or problems they carry.
Based on the comment, “Customer’s request changes day by day. One of the aim of this program is to get prepared to meet with such direction.”, it is decided to proceed by breaking down the aim to activities of each division.
Production planning, set-up time, cost for tooling & L/T, productivity improvement, inventory reduction will be action themes for each division, and promotion of such activities giving initiative to each field, surely leads to the development of human resources.
In addition, since Mr. Ikemoto is professional in pressing, stereotypes of this factory would be changed.
TrackBack URL : http://en.genbakaizen.com/2008/10/13/introduction-of-toyota-production-system-to-a-pressing-factory-2/trackback/
