Toyota Motor Corporation's recent decision to stop producing
and selling many of its car models because of faulty gas pedals has captured
national and world headlines. This is a very courageous and risky move on the
part of Toyota
management, but I feel it's the right decision.
Editor's Note: The author (terrapin) is Vice President of
Content Operations at GlobalSpec, CR4's parent company. A student of the Toyota
Production System, he blogs about Lean Manufacturing for CR4.
Toyota's
decision was probably an easy one for them to make based upon the principles
from the company's Lean Thinking culture. An important facet of Lean Thinking,
which bases many of its tenets on the Toyota Production System, is to stop the
line when a problem occurs.
Pulling the Andon
Cord
As the web site
for Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky Inc. (TMMK) explains, the term that is
used is to "pull the Andon Cord". Specifically, "team members on the line are
responsible for the parts they use. They are inspectors for their own work and
that of co-workers. When a problem on any vehicle is spotted, any team member
can pull a rope — called an andon cord — strung along the assembly line to halt
production. Only when the problem is resolved is the line restarted. This
process involves every team member in monitoring and checking the quality of
every car produced"
Short Term Losses,
Long Term Gains
According to an article
about the Toyota recall by Dan Strumph of the
Associated Press, "Toyota
spokesman Mike Goss said most workers were expected to be at their jobs during
the assembly line shutdown. Workers will receive
additional training or work on improvements to their assembly processes. They
can also take vacation or unpaid leave," Strumph said.
Toyota
will most likely suffer some short term losses as a result of its decision, but
in the long run the company will be even stronger. Toyota and other Lean Thinking companies tend
to focus on long term success while forgoing short term profits.
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