To resume many of the lean principles of a company or attitude, one book is key. From the must-read book The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer (Dr Jeffrey Liker), Wikipedia, and other sources, with our own comments and additions, read on.
![The 14 Lean Principles of The Toyota Way 1 Lean Principles Automotive Factory](https://innovation.world/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Lean-Principles-Automotive-Factory-300x200.jpg)
Toyota is among, if not the top, initial Lean practitioners at a big scale. The automotive industry asking for high volumes, high quality, and safety, yet with reasonable prices taking the complexity, materials, studies, and labor needed into account.
(FYI, the book/Wikipedia terminology is used for the lean principles to ease communication)
Category | Toyota Lean Principles ©J. Liker | Our Comments | |
Long-term philosophy | 1 | Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term financial goals | Obliges to define a long-term objective, and planning for these, including a budget, HR … Refer to the Hoshin Kanri methodology to help here |
The right process will produce the right results | 2 | Create a continuous process flow to bring problems to the surface | Not only process but company attitude. It involves at minimum manufacturing + HR + Quality + Customer Support No finger-pointing. Should be seen as an opportunity as in Golden Nuggets for innovation. |
3 | Use “pull” systems to avoid overproduction | Look at the ERP, its settings may help or not here … Note: this is the tip of the iceberg KPI. No process will be capable of Just In Time if too much WIP, or random Quality … Structure your process in autonomous sub-teams, with some defined and controlled decision-making and problem-solving power. | |
4 | Level out the workload (heijunka). (“Work like the tortoise, not the hare“). | Key for production organization: start with Takt Time definition and then level the individual processes cycle times to avoid bottlenecks or over-capacities. More on that in all process posts. | |
5 | Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time | Among others, see Design for Six Sigma (DfSS) articles | |
6 | Standardized tasks and processes are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee empowerment | No process can be measured and therefore improved if not repeatable. Standardization is the first step before drawing any conclusion Real case: during an audit at a supplier’s assembly line, while observing that there was no instruction available for the workers at all, the answer was “Operators have all instructions in their head” 🙁 | |
7 | Use visual control so no problems are hidden | ||
8 | Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes | Is part of the technology selection. Needs to involve the full team (quality, process, purchasing) even -or especially- at the R&D phase. Reminder, 80% of the cost is decided at the design phase … so as later Quality KPIs. See Agility and modern times about that. | |
Add value to the organization by developing your people | 9 | Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy, and teach it to others. | very structure-dependent (not all companies are Toyota). Long-term leaders are ideal of course, but less and less the case in smaller Agile organizations (refer below). Other means of building and keeping know-how are also needed. |
10 | Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company’s philosophy | ||
11 | Respect your extended network of partners and suppliers by challenging them and helping them improve | not only formal audits but even more upstream workshops, on-site continuous improvement, Kaizen, Blitz … Tip: have your own clients participate in your activities, so as you with your suppliers | |
Continuously solving root problems drives organizational learning | 12 | Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation (Genchi Genbutsu) | ≈ “where the value is created” philosophy. Not only for HR efficiency but one of the keys to helping design the next product with production technologies and means in mind |
13 | Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options; implement decisions rapidly (nemawashi) | again, less and less the case in smaller Agile organizations (refer below) | |
14 | Become a learning organization through relentless reflection (hansei) and continuous improvement (kaizen) | Do put a process in place to formally capitalize the know-how. This is more and more needed as developers and teams are moving. Tip: do separate the know-how from the mandatory company procedures (not to have to learn and validate 200+ procedures before starting to work when you join a company … all but Agile organization) |
Lean Principles vs Agile Organisation
There is one aspect where these 14 Lean Principles are a bit outdated or would need some update: the Agility aspect of some models of modern organizations and development:
- technologies and rhythm of changes evolve exponentially
- customer demands, competition, and suppliers evolve very rapidly. Not on time = zero sell
- people change much more jobs and the company
- remote companies, remote work, and more and more outsourced teams and functions
So the lean principles #8, #9, #10, #13 would need to be amended, so as in some aspects #5
In some markets, having a new product every 1-2 years is a must
![The 14 Lean Principles of The Toyota Way 3 High Volume Assembly Line](https://innovation.world/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/High-Volume-Assembly-Line-300x200.jpg)
…whether we like it or not (especially for the ecological aspect).
Ex: producing a new reliable high-volume phone model every year, implies either having technologies being chosen and validated years ahead or having an extremely efficient R&D, V&V, and production process. Most of the time both … or prepare your Customer Support team and financials to face issues or market recalls (antenna less effective, battery catching fire, foldable screens cracking …)
A Technology Roadmap process implemented in your R&D department is a must for this.