Toyota Pulls the Andon Cord

http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2010/01/toyota-pulls-the-big-andon-cord-finally.html#comments

I'm very curious as to how often that cord gets pulled. What happens to the worker who pulls it?

What means does Toyota use to empower or educate their workers on what discrepancies warrant stopping the line?

Calling a halt to production and addressing the problem was a gutsy thing to do. It shows that Toyota places customer welfare first and takes it very seriously. It is an action taken by engineers and supported by accountants/lawyers. I believe it to be a sincere demonstration of Corporate integrity and reponsibility. The only other car company thet would do this is Ford. Even the great Porsche let out crummy engines without taking responsibility and didn't fix it until they redesigned the engine. The problem was that people other than engineers made thier engine decsions for them and the company suffered for it. They have learned thier lesson and are back to excellence. I now rank Toyota, Ford and, Porsche as being worthy of trust because engineers are part of the decision process.

This is something smart. It saves money, market share, and time, in the final analysis.

"There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over" is one principle that I see played out so often, this has become a mantra of mine.

I actually never heard of the andon cord, but it is simply brilliant. Kudos.

I suspect that in instituting this management system, some supervisor/exec had to call an all-hands meeting(s) to complain about how the andon cord wasn't being pulled nearly often enough. Too much time working in the competitive marketplace breeds a sensitivity to costs, budgets, ROI and all that other management crap, even among the low-level grunts.

It's too bad more manufacturers don't do this.

Understanding "lean" and having seen Toyota's commitment first hand in Japan, I am surprised that it took so long for the lines to be stopped.

I am almost suspicious that the reason the reaction was so slow was more that the American plants are managed by people that don't yet understand and share the full implications of the Toyota Production System the way that it is understood at the parent company. Are the US plants managed by executives recruited from the other auto companies in the US where the focus and culture is different? (Please note that I've been to Detroit, Morraine and a few other plants over there and experienced the culture inside that industry.)

I have also witnessed the success of GM in their Australian plant implementing a similar andon process for a model launch that was in their own words "unbelievably succesful".