The DNA of the Toyota Production System

Here's some of what Pascal Dennis shared in the "Building a Sustainable Lean Culture Workshop." It's great material that lays the ground work for good management, team dynamic, and leading-edge greenhouse application. (If you get a ever get an opportunity to be in the workshop- it's worth it's weight in gold.)

Jim Womack says we are on the verge of the 3rd Age of Lean.

• 1st Age: 1900-1980. Age of Discovery.
• 2nd Age: 1980-to present. Age of Lean Tools.
• 3rd Age: TBD. Age of Management Mental Models

This 3rd age will call for management to create new mental models about their

• Business Purpose
• Business Processes
• Business Performance

Lean is more than the implementation of tools. Steven Spears, in his Harvard Business Review article "Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System" gives insightful analysis into what really makes Toyota tick.

As a matter-of-fact, 6 out of 10 companies that try to implement Lean fail. Largely because they try to replicate the tools, instead of changing mental models to to understand the DNA in the underlying system.

So here's a thumbnail of the DNA:

The Four Rules

Rule 1 - Standards

• All work (including support processes) is highly specified as to content, sequence, timing, & outcomes.
• People who actually do the work, design the work
• The work has self-tests built-in

Rule 2 - Connections

Customer-Supplier connections are direct, binary, & self-diagnostic

Rule 3 - Pathways
Pathways (the Value-Stream) for products & services are

• simple,
• pre-defined, and
• self-diagnostic

Rule 4 - Improvement

Our Problem Solving approach is

• structured,
• standardized
• self-testing
• occurs by those who do the work with capable teachers

The Four Capabilities

1. We design work so that problems are readily apparent
2. We swarm problems when they occur
3. We share learning laterally
4. Leaders take responsibility for developing their people.