Continuous Improvement video on MS NBC

[kimboy]

msnbc video clip

Series of broadcasts on MS NBC regarding cars. This one happens to show Toyota's Corporate Culture quite will.

You'll have to watch the commercial first.

 

[Uneek]

Good find. That's the key difference in culture and Toyota's manufacturing vs. a competitor. It's encouraged that employee's find problems and stop the line.

We did a case study back in my college days (organization and behavior managment) and their assembly line is set up with a red, yellow and green light. Red is major problem, the line is stopped and problem is being investigated. Yellow is when a minor problem is discovered and a solution is being implemented. Green is all clear. Toyota believes the ideal color is yellow, meaning their finding problems and fixing them.

Whereas in the Big Three manufacturing line, stopping the line should only be done for a life and death situation.

 

[jacal]

I did a full time MBA program and we so often came back to Toyota in our case studies and classes that I basically knew I had to have one!



J

 

[TheBlueWave]

I did a full time MBA program and we so often came back to Toyota in our case studies and classes that I basically knew I had to have one!

I can relate. We had a someone from my company's lean organization in the plant today and he constantly used Toyota's Production System as examples of how we need to drive our own improvement culture and align everyone in the organization to the same goal. I am a new engineer assigned to implement lean and lemme tell ya, its real hard at first. Toyota has done it for years and are the standard by which all others are compared. I got a Toyota product because they emphasize first pass quality or getting right the first time. Re-work is a major waste and Toyota doesn't pass that along to the customer. OK thats enough, I could go for hours.