Toyota’s non-linear approach to product development is much more productive than linear systems used by most American engineers with the result it’s now being adapted for use in other disciplines that employ information workers.
(PRWEB) October 11, 2005 -- A study conducted by the National Center for Manufacturing Science (NCMS) has determined Toyota’s product development engineers to be four times more productive on average than their American and European counterparts. While western engineers spend about 20 percent of their time actually creating something of value for consumers, Toyota’s spend 80 percent.
According to Michael N. Kennedy, who wrote a book about the Toyota development system, “Product Development for the Lean Enterprise,” the reason is that Western systems follow a linear approach that focuses engineers on individual tasks and due dates for each new model under development. Toyota does not focus its efforts on the development of specific vehicles or on tasks but rather on the development of the many subsystems that come together to form automobiles and trucks. The result is Toyota engineers are less concerned with details such as completing drawings, schematics, and bureaucratic tasks normally associated with product development. They concentrate instead on developing superior subsystems and components in the belief these subsystems can be mixed and matched to create a whole host of new product possibilities.
When the time comes to develop a new model, an experienced Toyota engineer leads the effort in a kind of orchestra-director role. The engineer needs only to mix and match the subsystems, based on what customers indicate they want, in order to build a new model from the ground up.
Stephen Hawley Martin, author of a new book, “Lean Enterprise Leader: How to Get Things Done without Doing It All Yourself,” said the idea behind the Toyota system is not new to the West. “In 1993 the authors of ‘Reengineering the Corporation,’ for example, wrote about dramatically improved productivity when IBM Credit Corporation changed the way it processed credit applications.”
A study had shown IBM’s existing task-based process required seven days for a credit application to move from one individual to the next through five different steps. Yet the actual time spent processing an application over those seven days was 90 minutes. So IBM shifted to an approach where a single credit manager handles an application from start to finish. This reduced the average wait time for credit approval from seven days to four hours.
In his book, Martin gives another example of how changing the way things have been done for years to a more holistic approach has cut down on wheel spinning and wasted time. He said, “A colleague and I developed a process for creating advertising using the principles Toyota employs to design new cars. Rather than turn the development of an ad campaign over to an art director and a copy writer to mull over, take coffee breaks, and push pencils around for a couple of weeks as various deadlines approached, we employed a cross-functional team to generate a plethora of possible ad campaign directions—as many as can be said to be on strategy. Once a half dozen people from different disciplines with different personalities and different backgrounds are together in a room, this process takes only a few hours at most. You should see the concepts pour forth once people get going and rev up."
Afterward, these ideas are reviewed and refined by a creative director who might be considered the counterpart to Toyota’s experienced product development engineer. Instead of weeks, the entire process takes at most a couple of days, Martin said. "Then, rather than present a single approach, we involve the client in what might be termed a narrowing process."
Asked whether he thought there might be opportunities in other industries for increased productivity based on a holistic, cooperative approach Martin said, “Yes, I’d say the possibilities are are virtually endless. Today, businesses that manage engineers, artists, or product designers still tend to be based on the old theory of management, which is to divide work into tasks in an assembly line process such as Henry Ford’s. But more people are beginning to realize knowledge work doesn’t lend itself well to this. You can't make knowledge workers productive by directing them, by dividing what they do into individual tasks and creating a neat process, because by definition they will have more specialized knowledge about their contribution and what they do than the people who manage them ever will.”
“Product Development for the Lean Enterprise” (ISBN 1-892438-09-1) and “Lean Enterprise Leader” (ISBN 1-892538-47-4) are books that can be purchased online at http://www.LeanTransformation.com, or Amazon.com, and are both published by The Oaklea Press, an independent book publisher established in 1995.
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