Original link: https://blog.devtang.com/2022/06/19/toyota-tps-system-book-summary/
I. Introduction
At home this past weekend, I finished reading the comic Toyota Production System, a book about supply chain optimization.
Toyota has long been among the top three automakers in terms of market capitalization, largely thanks to effective improvements in the way it makes production. The industry calls Toyota’s improvement method: TPS, which has now been widely disseminated and learned by various industries.
MIT researchers in the United States called Toyota’s production method “lean production.”
Today, the term “Lean” has evolved further and is synonymous with continuous improvement and innovation.
Below are some notes.
2. The background of TPS generation
The full name of TPS is: Toyota Production System, which appeared around 1950 when Toyota was struggling.
At that time, Japan’s economic inflation was serious. Dodge, the economic adviser to the US military government that ruled Japan, proposed the Dodge Line, the main content of which was to allow the Japanese government to reduce the deficit and adapt to a balanced finance.
As a result, the Japanese government raised central and local taxes from 25.9% before the reform to 28.5%. Strengthening tax collection helps balance the government’s budget, but it also makes business operations more difficult.
At that time, automobile production was still a popular assembly line production. In order to pursue large-scale production, the assembly line would continue to run once it was started, and it was very easy for goods to have a backlog of inventory.
The operator of Toyota went to the United States to investigate, and got inspiration from the action of “timely sales and timely replenishment” in American supermarkets, thus inventing TPS.
3. The main content of TPS
The main content of TPS is the optimization of waste.
In production, waste is everywhere. for example:
- Your raw materials are bought and stored in the inventory for a long time, which is a waste of funds
- Your product is too much to sell, this is a waste of inventory
- Your people are not doing production work, but are doing the transportation of production materials, which is the waste of transportation
- Your production process is not efficient, the action is not the most economical, this is the waste of production
In my own understanding, in order to reduce waste, TPS has mainly made two transformations:
- Retrofit of production processes
- Transformation of team members
3.1 Transformation of the production process
The transformation of TPS to the production process mainly introduces the following methods:
- U-Line: Reduce Line Length, Introduce Multi-skill Work
- Post-sequence pull: Determine the production volume based on the actual order
- Just-in-time production: optimize upstream and downstream to shorten the production cycle as much as possible
- Kanban system: transmit production information through visual data transmission
- Leveling: Mix multiple SKUs together to ensure delivery time
3.2 Transformation of team members
The transformation of TPS team members is mainly to cultivate generalist mechanics. Because after on-demand production, the production line may be switched at any time, and if a worker can only do one action on the production line, his manpower will be wasted.
After on-demand production, the production status of the factory is no longer 100%, because the demand will fluctuate.
At this time, in order to allow the team to use non-production time to do valuable things, Toyota asked them to do a review and summary of the production line, and continuously optimize and iterate the production process.
On the one hand, employees have enriched their skills, and on the other hand, they have participated in the process of production improvement, so their work initiative has also greatly increased.
3.3 The essence of transformation is to make up for the disadvantages
The above methodologies are essentially to pursue the concept of “on-demand production” borrowed from American supermarkets. In order to implement this concept, Toyota has carried out the above transformation of the entire supply chain.
This transformation is actually “patching” the disadvantage of “production on demand”, helping the shortcomings of “production on demand” not to be too fatal, and making the overall advantages of “production on demand” outweigh the disadvantages.
What are the disadvantages of on-demand production?
- Production line start-up costs are too high. So TPS introduced a U-shaped production line to make the production line start up quickly.
- Raw material procurement time is long. So TPS introduced just-in-time production to optimize upstream and downstream procurement and production.
- When multiple SKUs are produced, you can only do one first and then the other. So TPS introduces balanced production.
- Staff wasted. So TPS brought in multi-skilled workers.
Through these patches, the economics of on-demand production are manifested, thus giving Toyota a huge market competitiveness.
4. What I thought of from TPS
4.1 Multi-skilled employees
Cultivating multi-skilled employees is a business philosophy that every company can learn from.
For employees: Because the market demand is constantly changing, if an employee can only do one thing, he can only leave when the business needs change. And if he is a generalist, then he can deal with changes together with the enterprise.
For enterprises: a multi-skilled employee, because he has more perspectives, helps to improve the upstream and downstream connections of production, and is more likely to grow into a manager. In order to meet the goal of continuous growth of the enterprise.
Taking technology development as an example, we often talk about being a T-shaped talent in the technical field, that is, one specialization with multiple abilities. The server-side should be able to write the front-end, and the front-end should be able to write the client. In this way, after you understand the similarities and differences of various development technologies, it will not only help you learn new skills, but also help yourself understand the development challenges of the other party, making the collaboration between you more comfortable.
4.2 How to innovate
Opportunities for innovation always occur when the times change, which may be economic changes, changes in people’s ideas, or changes in production methods.
As for the opportunity for innovation, how to make a landing plan? Toyota’s TPS introduction process gave me an inspiration: focus on core issues and resolve secondary contradictions.
Take Toyota’s reform as an example, what is the core issue? The core question is:
- In the case of an increasingly declining economy, extensive assembly line production will bring a lot of waste.
What is the solution? The solution is:
- Change the extensive pipeline mode to on-demand production mode.
What secondary contradictions will the introduction of the on-demand production model bring? The minor contradiction is:
- High cost of starting and stopping the assembly line
- Slow procurement of raw materials
- Workers may be idle
- Slow response for multiple SKU production
It doesn’t matter, as long as these contradictions are optimized to a certain extent, and the problems after optimization are less than the benefits, it will be fine.
And so innovation was born, helping Toyota survive the economic crisis and become the top three car companies by market value.
4.3 There is no good or bad, only suitable and inappropriate solutions
There are many knives in our kitchen, some are suitable for cutting fruits, some are suitable for cutting vegetables, some are suitable for cutting bones, and there is also a kind of knife, which is specially used for cutting bread, which is very easy to use.
Every knife is like a solution, it is designed for a specific scenario and has advantages and disadvantages.
When times change, a solution may no longer fit its context, and you need to rebuild your solution.
At this time, thinking about the core problem and solving the secondary contradiction can help you.
V. Summary
Toyota invented the lean production method of TPS in order to reduce waste during the recession in Japan, and achieved great success by transforming the supply chain and team with the goal of on-demand production.
above.
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