Page 336 - The Toyota Way Fieldbook

Chapter 13. Problem Solving the Toyota Way 311

(Figure 13-3)]. It is also management’s responsibility to establish expectations for
the organization, to identify weak points in the system, and to apply the appro-
priate resources. Mid-level opportunities are generally initiated by the supervi-
sor, the team, or by an individual. These items may be based on overall compa-
ny objectives for improvement or on issues of particular challenge to the group
affected. Finally, Toyota is able to capture a huge opportunity by facilitating the
individual efforts toward improvement. The individual or small team nearly
always initiates these efforts. Each person understands the process of continu-
ous improvement and pursues that objective in his or her daily activities.
In fact, continuous improvement is so important that changes to processes
are made up to the last day of production in a product cycle. This seems para-
doxical until it is understood that the idea of continuous improvement truly
means continuous—never ending. If people believe that improvements are only
desired under the “correct” conditions, they will, in effect, not make improve-
ments because the conditions may never be correct. We’ve often heard people state
that a product or process will “go away” in six months, so it is not practical to
spend time and money improving it. The Toyota Way suggests that a small
improvement with minor effort yielding perhaps one second of time or one cent
per piece saved over the six-month period is, in fact, a practical idea. It facilitates
the idea that improvement must occur at all times at all levels by all individuals.
Any rules suggesting appropriate times and conditions for improvement will
kill the spirit of continuous improvement.

Management Kaizen
Cross-functional Team

Quality Circle

Kaizen

Small Team
Individual
Individual
Daily Kaizen

Figure 13-3. Toyota leverages opportunities at all levels