catos

TOYOTA's most admirable, and even the global automotive companies are studying a way of production, called lean production. It can be said that Toyota from small workshop in a weak growth for the world's leading automobile manufacturing enterprise, lean production work, even if whether Japanese car brand, not the mode of lean production, Toyoda Nokotoko all like today so independently, are unknown.

I recently read a book called "the way to change the world of machines". I think the content, there are a lot of it is worth sharing, so that we understand the following Henry Ford's production line after the next change in the automotive industry, the production of some of the story behind. This a series of a little more content and recently I will attend some tours can also use this topic to write about, so will be made over a period of about a month of serial. The first one starts with the origin of lean production.

As the beginning of a series of articles, this article does not lean production are given definition, because the lean production is so complex, if you don't know its origin, evolution, and complementary system, could not really understand lean production.

Do not know if you have not read "the Toyota's lean production is from Toyota Kiichiro such foresight, he is doomed is vehicle production management of genius" and that such inspirational chicken soup. Chicken soup hot mouth, come on, I'll help you out. "Lean" this book tells us is another story.

Instead of saying that is a kind of active type of mass production optimization, lean production is "ambition to mass production, no large-scale digestive commodity market" such a contradictory social conditions caused by a passive adaptation results rather than.

In the 1930's, TOYOTA began to get involved in the automotive manufacturing industry. TOYOTA was still in the mode of production is still dominated by hand, labor productivity is low, this situation has continued into the post World War II reconstruction period. Toyota's cousin Toyoda Eiji is an engineer, in order to improve the labor productivity, he went to the Detroit "the west". Where the Ford Motor Co, the line is the heat to produce T type car. But Toyoda Eiji soon found that the production line can not be a full set of transplants, because Japan's national conditions, large-scale production line is difficult to carry out:

1, in the United States, a T car can meet all of your needs, large production base, production line without any problems, but it was the Japanese domestic need less (large and small trucks and luxury cars, agricultural vehicles ranging), single vehicle demand amount and many kinds of models;

2, the Japanese mainland expensive labor and union system introduced to native workers unwilling like Foxconn assembly line workers as mechanical duplication;

3, the island is relatively isolated, there is no such a large number of "new immigrants" as the United States, there can be no suffering from poor working conditions of migrant workers available;

4, postwar Japan weakened, lack of funds and foreign exchange, from the introduction of foreign advanced technology is excessive to talk about, only on their own toil.

So under the background mentioned above, then Toyota chief Production Engineer Taiichi Ohno conceived by Toyota sui generis, there are different from the mass production of a production. This mode of production is to adapt to the production of small batch and multi batch, so it is very different from the production line of a large number of specialized production.

First of all, Ono Ichi painstaking research can quickly make and replace the mold technology, which is now the prototype of the flexible production platform. Due to the low yield of single category, the different category need different mold, so Ohno's idea is to produce rhythm as a benchmark, simplifying the die making, enhancing the die changing efficiency, shorten the die change cycle, and let the stamping workers master die change skills (such way can province for mold industry and trade a jobs). To simplify the mold production and replacement of the benefits are many, the first flexible arrangements for production capacity, followed by the implementation of the design plan to help shorten the time, 30001st mold error, the processing is also more efficient.

In the use of human strategy, TOYOTA is also forced to open up a set of effective way. 40's because of deflation, the economic downturn, automobile demand decline, TOYOTA was forced to fire 1/4 employees. In order to quell the discomfort of the surviving employees, continue to play their enthusiasm, TOYOTA promised to give them a lifetime contract, and as part of the TOYOTA community, to share the company's profits. But generous conditions is not free, Toyota and the workers take the initiative to assume responsibility, excluding encountered in the work is difficult job one, even to stop work on hand at the expense and the staff to obey the rotation arrangement, thus different jobs in science learning to different abilities and become cross type talent. Rule out the problem of the process, as well as the staff of the company's services, the skills of the workers themselves will be improved with the increase in the number of years of service. This and the assembly line workers to repeat the work day after day, can obtain the skills of a single process is more and more skilled, there is a difference between the nature of the. In order to adapt to the workers to create the ability to enhance the value of the curve, TOYOTA has also set up a "service + position" of the pay system, that is, the employees