|
"An environment where people have to think brings with it wisdom, and this wisdom brings with it kaizen (continuous improvement)"
Teruyuki Minoura
Senior Managing Director, Toyota Motor Corporation
A Toyota saying goes, “there can be no success making things without making people.” Developing your entire workforce into kaizen-minded problem-solvers, and then giving those people the time, tools and support needed for continuous improvement of their own work is essential to radically improve your company’s quality, customer satisfaction and bottom line.
 Taichi Ohno, one of the founders of the Toyota Production System and Toyota’s former Director of Manufacturing, once described people as the “nervous system” of the factory. As the human body survives through reflexive responses to pain or danger without the need to stop and think, the people in the factory must reflexively react to changes. Manufacturing is too complicated – too many variables all moving at the same time – for any system of complete management control to be effective. Properly trained and with a thorough understanding of the company’s vision and objectives, the people on the factory floor can be the force to continually correct the flow, solving a myriad of small problems and constantly bringing production back in line with your goals.
Beyond problem solving, the people closest to the job should be your most powerful force for improvement. Ohno also said, “Something is wrong if workers do not look around each day, find things that are tedious or boring, and then rewrite the procedures. Even last month’s manual should be out of date.”
Your employees must be encouraged, even expected, to shake things up and constantly seek a better way. This system of “everyone engaged everyday” with continuous improvement is the heart of kaizen.
How We Can Help
Our affiliates include Toyota veterans – experts in creating and implementing the management processes for developing trainers, effective front line supervisors, and continually engaged and involved employees. Through individual and team based training and coaching, we are uniquely capable of turning your workforce into a problem solving, improvement generating resource. Management will be shown how to lead and motivate with a combination of 5S programs (see the Lean Glossary for a definition), appropriate compensation policies, greater accessibility to management, standardized work, ongoing training, team level rewards, immediate behavior reinforcement and constant communication of achievable and measurable goals. Finally, we will leave behind an internal lean training and development program of your own, enabling new employees to quickly learn to become contributing members of lean teams, and continuing the development of your current workforce, assuring that your lean improvement trajectory will continue long after we have gone.
You can expect dramatic, sustainable increases in employee enthusiasm and morale as your people realize that they are key contributors to their own job security, and that they can perform as well as or better than any of their global competitors. The result will be a real cultural transformation and engagement of your entire workforce in a sustained environment of continuous improvement. Your employees will indeed, become your most important asset.
|
