I’ve written a book; A Business Diary, Part I, which looks at aspects of the workplace and touches on points that are related to the approach seen in the system looked at in the article. It explores the contradictions that keep an organization from achieving the successes which this system enjoys, and looks clearly at the gaps that exist. Different than most other business-related books, it reads like a novel as it presents four candid stories that take place in the workplace. I play with the idea of writing Part 2 of the series, where I would be able to share more insights about creating the success which is seen in the Toyota system. But it depends on the success of my current books, and is only an idea at this point.
The link is to an article from Working Knowledge - A First Look At Faculty Research (from the Harvard Business School)
The article’s point about how others have not been able to emulate the Toyota system is very true. “However, despite Toyota's openness and the genuinely honest efforts by other companies over many years to emulate Toyota, no one had yet mat...ched Toyota in terms of having simultaneously high-quality, low-cost, short lead-time, flexible production over time and broadly based across the system.”
The success of the Toyota system is based very much on the traits of the workers; their inherent attributes that permit them to be able to do what is necessary for the system to be as effective as it is. These are fundamental items which cannot easily, if at all, be trained into people. I’d say this is why other companies have struggled to replicate it and its success. The top down approach of control through managing is not conducive to what it takes for the Toyota system to work. This is why people have sat, puzzled, at how to apply the Toyota system to their organizations, there is a basic contradiction between the two. And this is also why some companies have started up entirely new businesses, some as joint ventures with Japanese companies, to try to instill the fundamental items needed from the start.
The system is somewhat of an elusive thing, to obtain and understand it, and try to apply it. It stems from some fundamental aspects of the people doing the work and it spreads out from there throughout the entire organization. It’s a way of thinking.
If a company tries to replicate the system, people have to learn to let go and give responsibility and even authority away. It’s about empowerment. If this is successfully done, an organization will change in the way it looks. In more layman’s terms people must have a lot of personal maturity, more of it within those who are not directly doing the work. Hence the comments about leadership in the Toyota system.
One can disagree about what it takes to get the Toyota success, but the fact that the results have never been duplicated leaves the challenges to be unsuccessful, which further reinforces the thinking and traits needed. And I would argue that it is for this reason that similar approaches, in the design of work systems but not their execution, have seen some good results but not within an environment similar to that of the Toyota system. The alternative in the standardization of work and the consistent application of the plan-do-check-act cycle can be designed into a business, but its execution will be driven by the business’ systems and not by the worker’s themselves. The difference being the autonomy in one which permits decision making as part of the responsibility given, and the other a rigid adherence to procedures, that are part of an overall system, which control the making of the decision. A fine point and an important one, somewhat analogous to the differences between a pull system versus a push system, figuratively speaking.
It is not surprising that the finer workings of the Toyota system are still not fully understood by many. There is a gap in expectations and outlooks which prevents the system from being internalized.
I’ve written a book, A Business Diary, Part I, which looks at aspects of the workplace and touches on points that are related to the approach seen in the Toyota system. It explores the contradictions that keep an organization from achieving the successes which this system enjoys, and looks clearly at the gaps that exist. Different than most other business-related books, it reads like a novel as it presents four candid stories that take place in the workplace. I play with the idea of writing Part 2 of the series, where I would be able to share more insights about creating the success which is seen in the Toyota system. But it depends on the success of my current books, and is only an idea at this point.
The success of the Toyota system is based very much on the traits of the workers; their inherent attributes that permit them to be able to do what is necessary for the system to be as effective as it is. These are fundamental items which cannot easily, if at all, be trained into people. I’d say this is why other companies have struggled to replicate it and its success. The top down approach of control through managing is not conducive to what it takes for the Toyota system to work. This is why people have sat, puzzled, at how to apply the Toyota system to their organizations, there is a basic contradiction between the two. And this is also why some companies have started up entirely new businesses, some as joint ventures with Japanese companies, to try to instill the fundamental items needed from the start.
The system is somewhat of an elusive thing, to obtain and understand it, and try to apply it. It stems from some fundamental aspects of the people doing the work and it spreads out from there throughout the entire organization. It’s a way of thinking.
If a company tries to replicate the system, people have to learn to let go and give responsibility and even authority away. It’s about empowerment. If this is successfully done, an organization will change in the way it looks. In more layman’s terms people must have a lot of personal maturity, more of it within those who are not directly doing the work. Hence the comments about leadership in the Toyota system.
One can disagree about what it takes to get the Toyota success, but the fact that the results have never been duplicated leaves the challenges to be unsuccessful, which further reinforces the thinking and traits needed. And I would argue that it is for this reason that similar approaches, in the design of work systems but not their execution, have seen some good results but not within an environment similar to that of the Toyota system. The alternative in the standardization of work and the consistent application of the plan-do-check-act cycle can be designed into a business, but its execution will be driven by the business’ systems and not by the worker’s themselves. The difference being the autonomy in one which permits decision making as part of the responsibility given, and the other a rigid adherence to procedures, that are part of an overall system, which control the making of the decision. A fine point and an important one, somewhat analogous to the differences between a pull system versus a push system, figuratively speaking.
It is not surprising that the finer workings of the Toyota system are still not fully understood by many. There is a gap in expectations and outlooks which prevents the system from being internalized.
I’ve written a book, A Business Diary, Part I, which looks at aspects of the workplace and touches on points that are related to the approach seen in the Toyota system. It explores the contradictions that keep an organization from achieving the successes which this system enjoys, and looks clearly at the gaps that exist. Different than most other business-related books, it reads like a novel as it presents four candid stories that take place in the workplace. I play with the idea of writing Part 2 of the series, where I would be able to share more insights about creating the success which is seen in the Toyota system. But it depends on the success of my current books, and is only an idea at this point.
