
Toyota Manufacturing Principles - josephcohen
http://josephmcohen.com/post/71536977591/toyota-manufacturing-principles
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VLM
Its hard to talk about Japanese management techniques without talking about
Deming.

So Jidoka is pretty much Deming #11. Poka-yoke is obviously Deming #3. Kaizen
is Deming #5. At least according to the "Out of the Crisis" poster I used to
have.

I keep my Deming fandom quiet, he's about as anti-american as you can get. I'd
get less flack if I said I was a Marxist. Its too bad, Deming was a genius.
I'd say this whole topic is NSFW because you can't get further away from
modern American management than Deming. Its safer to quote Marx at work than
Deming.

~~~
philwelch
Weren't Deming's ideas the genesis of the whole "Total Quality Management" fad
in the 90's? What happened?

~~~
analog31
We'll work on product quality just after we make our numbers for the quarter.
Honest.

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PeterWhittaker
It amazes me how many of us are willing to endure non-poka-yoke, that is,
processes that are inherently mistake-ready. My current fave is timesheet
rekeying by our admin. We're small, so it isn't too bad, but it cannot scale,
and as the admin becomes more harried as we grow, mistakes will be made.
Guaranteed.

Poka yoke. My new favourite process term. The other two are important, vital
even, but poka yoke has to be paramount.

(If you jidoka without poka yoke, how long before a worker is hurt by a
machine?)

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James_Duval
Could such attitudes form part of an explanation for the JRPG/WRPG gulf?

JRPGs typically encourage training, finding efficient ways to grind (improving
processes) and perfecting character builds through trial and error - at least
on the first playthrough. This seems like a Kaizen approach.

WRPGs typically encourage a focus on fight-by-fight tactics and a priori
evaluation of build options and strategies to find an 'optimal' team, tactic,
strategy and build. This seems like a 'secret formula' approach to management
I've seen a lot in my own professional life.

At their worst, JRPGs are grindfests where the gameplay consists of finding
ways to minimise that grind or maximise efficiency.

At their worst, WRPGs are spreadsheet and inventory management simulators.

I think I am stretching a little here (many Japanese RPGs are
indistinguishable from so-called WRPGs), and I appreciate that this is
something of a tangent, it was just something that struck me.

~~~
e12e
I think tendencies in rpgs and relative success/feasabilty of _actually_
realizing lean production is more likely manifestations of underlying cultural
differences than any direct relation with these (concrete) management/process
ideas.

~~~
James_Duval
Oh yes, that's what I was thinking.

I wasn't implying that kaizen was causing culture which was causing JRPGs. I
was implying that the same culture was causing kaizen and JRPGs.

I was also talking only about kaizen, rather than about any of the other
management ideas touched on in the article.

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jdlshore
If you're interested in Toyota's manufacturing principles, "The Toyota Way" by
Jeffrey Liker is worth reading.

~~~
midas007
That's a good book.

Brief history of TPS:
[http://www.sae.org/manufacturing/lean/column/leanjun01.htm](http://www.sae.org/manufacturing/lean/column/leanjun01.htm)

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Theodores
I have extended the Toyota stuff in my own special way...

1) Imagine every piece of data in your code is a component, a physical widget.

2) Imagine that component has mass proportional to its size as measured in 1's
and 0's.

3) Imagine you have to have some person or some robot move it from place to
place, maybe via a warehouse (hard disk somewhere).

4) Now question what you are doing and whether it is efficient.

Take the simple but common scenario of working with someone that knows Dropbox
but not how to use FTP, e.g. a graphic designer. They upload their stuff to
Dropbox, taking hours to do because they are on the slow end of an ADSL
connection. They then send you the Dropbox link for you to then download and
upload to the server for them. Now imagine all of those 1's and 0's have
physical mass and have to move physical distances back and fore across the
Atlantic.

This whole process is so not 'just in time' manufacturing ways of doing
things.

Clearly this also goes on in your own code as well as with inane procedures
needed to work with non-techies. Sometimes thinking data has physical mass
helps you see whether what you are doing is efficient.

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curiouscats
Some blogs for those interested in Toyota's management practices

    
    
      - http://www.gembapantarei.com/
      - http://superfactory.typepad.com/
      - http://www.leanblog.org/
      - http://management.curiouscatblog.net/category/lean-thinking/

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gtklocker
Am I the only one who remembers this?

[http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-
killer...](http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-killer-
firmware--Bad-design-and-its-consequences)

~~~
TwoBit
Didn't it come out in the trial that the vehicle computer source code was
utter crap by any standards?

