From the category archives:

toyota

Video: Toyota Lexus RX Factory, Cambridge, Ontario, Canada

by Pete Abilla August 25, 2010

For those that are students of Lean Manufacturing or the Toyota Production System, but have not stepped inside a Toyota plant, this video will give you a sense of what it looks like. What you won’t see are many examples of Lean, except for a few: Minute 3:21 – You’ll see a runner, delivering a [...]

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Freedom within Framework

by Pete Abilla January 29, 2010

A fence keeps us safe from harm – often, from harming ourselves and from harming others.  In deployments of Lean Thinking at organizations, the principle of Freedom within Framework describes our approach well. Disambiguating the Fence A fence can be understood a few different ways: A Silo: A fence marks “mine” from “yours”.  This is [...]

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Respect for People, Underutilized People, and Waste

by Pete Abilla September 24, 2009

The two pillars in Lean Thinking are Continuous Improvement and Respect for People.  What is not well understood is that most of what we know as The Toyota Production System comes from these two pillars.  The Lean sub-culture tends to over-emphasize the “tools” of Kaizen, but miss the point altogether, since the tools stem or [...]

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The Atomic Rules of Kaizen

by Pete Abilla February 18, 2009

Systems that are internally consistent and externally pragmatic stem from just a few rules.  Systems with exceedingly many rules typically fail or will not endure.  For example, Most mathematical truths stem from just a few axioms Music stems from just a handful of finite notes Most Martial Arts stem from a few principles of angle, [...]

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Jeff Bezos and Root Cause Analysis

by Pete Abilla January 23, 2009

unrelated update: Deconstructing the Apple iPhone Supply Chain I’m always impressed when CEO’s demonstrate Deming-like behavior as they lead; it’s rare, but there’s almost a magical, mobilizing, and inspiring force that happens when CEO’s or corporate leaders behave in a respectful, inspiring, common-sense, and thoughtful way. Today, I’m reminded of an experience back in 2004 [...]

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Tesla Motors is not Toyota: A Contrast in Disrespect and Respect of People

by Pete Abilla October 18, 2008

Apparently Tesla Motors shutting down their Detroit office and laid-off 90% of the office.  The lucky 10% will be moved to San Jose, California.  I have no problems with letting-go of staff — business is tough and times are very tough — but the way Tesla Motors went about it was inhumane, to say the [...]

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Not Accountable, Not Responsible

by Pete Abilla August 9, 2008

Team size can make a big difference in the success of your service or product. What is counterintuitive for most people is that the larger the team size, the lower the likelihood of success for your service or product.  Why? Entropy can set in and large teams are inherently bad vehicles for communication. More insipid, [...]

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Maintain Forward Tension

by Pete Abilla July 20, 2008

One principle in Wing Chun is the maintaining of forward tension.  To explain, I’ll draw the distinction between Tension and Energy and show how this principle in Wing Chun can be applied to Change Management. Tension is a type of Energy A Wing Chun maxim goes as follows: soft and relaxed strength will put your [...]

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Fast Food Congestion

by Pete Abilla July 9, 2008

Every system has constraints — sometimes several — minor bottlenecks and major bottlenecks.  What makes managing constraints even more challenging is that bottlenecks move: up-and-down the process paths. I saw this phenomenon recently during a visit to a fast food restaurant, which I discuss in this post — but, my application of the Theory of [...]

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