TLS - TOC, Lean & Six Sigma

Conférence FOREP : Comment Toyota appréhende la qualité de la conception aux retours clients. Présenté par Marris consulting et Reynald Debaut-Henocque, ex VP Toyota Motor Manufacturing France

Reynald Debaut-Henocque, former Vice-President Manufacturing at Toyota Motor Manufacturing France in Onnaing, describes in 5 minutes what "good" Lean is. All too often, critics of Lean reduce it to the formula "doing more with less". According to them, this approach developed by Toyota would inevitably lead to the destruction of jobs by eliminating waste, to the intensification of work by increasing cadences, and to increased stress levels with over-ambitious production targets. In this video, Reynald introduces us to "good" Lean through 8 essential points: - Have a medium- and long-term vision - Communicate this vision to all employees - Measure the gaps between the current situation and the objective - Define activities to achieve the objective - Train managers to be leaders - Define the company's management style - Train all staff - Define the organization needed to deploy activities - Seek growth opportunities

1h47 webinar recording. Mark DeLuzio compares the three approaches and makes a recommendation as to how to incorporate these concepts into your business transformation.

Philip Marris, a leading authority in the fields of Lean / Toyota Way and the Theory of Constraints (TOC) describes how and why he combines these 2 approaches. With decades of experience and a track record of success, Philip shares invaluable insights into the powerful synergy between the Toyota Way and TOC methodologies. He talks not only about production, but also [...] Critical Chain Project Management and the Logical Thinking Process or Toyota's long term development of partnerships with suppliers. [...] He illustrates how TOC's laser focus on identifying and eliminating constraints complements Lean's waste reduction efforts, resulting in accelerated performance improvements and sustainable growth.

In this post I will look at how the tractor maker Fendt handles variability in its plant in Marktoberdorf, Germany. In my view, Fendt is one of the benchmark plants in the world in handling variability. In my previous post I looked at reasons why you may (or may not) leave one part empty on an assembly line with a part normally at every fixed interval. In this post I would like to expand on the idea of playing with the distance between parts to handle such variations in the cycle time, but with a focus on assembly lines where the interval between products can vary. We will look at how Fendt uses this to wrangle its variability.

TLS = Open TOC + Good Lean + Good Six Sigma. Presentation by Philip Marris at the TOCICO annual congress in Frankfurt in June 2013. It is argued that TLS ...

The statistical quality profession has a love/hate relationship with the Gaussian distribution. In SPC, it treats it like an embarrassing spouse. It uses the Gaussian distribution as the basis for all its control limits while claiming it doesn’t matter. In 2024, what role, if any, should this distribution play in the setting of action limits for quality characteristics?

Jeffrey Liker recommendation: "At Toyota, practicing scientific thinking every day is a way of managing. However, we are learning that jumping right to deploying practice of scientific thinking as a facilitative/coaching managerial system may only work with those rare organizations who are already coaching and committed.

Mark Rosenthal and members of the Toyota Kata community are often using a different approach for getting started, which Mark describes nicely in this 10-minute video"

Whether a QC method works depends on the condition of the process. If it can stabilize a new process. it issues too many false alarms later.

[...] But will adding inspectors and inspections fix the problem? What if, rather than adding inspectors (whether from the outside, from the FAA, or inside) at the end of the process, each of the 12,000 operators in the factory could be an inspector? Upstream, what if each engineer (software or hardware) were responsible for ensuring that quality is built in at each step? ...

Reynald Debaut-Henocque, former vice-president of production at Toyota Motor Manufacturing France (TMMF), introduces us to the organization of maintenance within his factory in Onnaing. Often outsourced, even neglected in many companies, maintenance is a subject close to his heart, to which he has paid particular attention throughout his career, despite not coming from a maintenance background. Indeed, to ensure the smooth operation of a car factory running on 3 shifts, effective maintenance is essential.

Toyota Times offers a unique, unprecedented inside view of Toyota not seen before. Through this site, Toyota shows how it is transforming into a mobility company and shares the thoughts of its top leadership, including Akio Toyoda. Join us for this behind-the-scenes view of Toyota.

Ever since I read “Toyota Way” by Jeffry Liker almost ten years ago, I was hoping to see Toyota Production System (TPS) live. Finally, my wish come true today during our trip to Japan we’ve visited Toyota city and joined the Takaoka Plant tour.

["Impressed how much you got out of the visit." Jeffrey Liker]

In this webinar, [...] Thorsteinn Siglaugsson and Bill Dettmer,  explained how the Logical Thinking Process can be applied in real-life situations. They presented examples to illustrate how this approach aids in defining goals, identifying root causes of complex problems, and resolving persistent conflicts. Some cases they discussed:
- A service department losing market share
- Getting back on track with a project management career
- Saving a stalled DDMRP implementation
- Building a world-class IT business in 10 years
During the second 30-minute segment of the video Bill and Thorsteinn responded to questions from the attendees.