Agile Development

Inside The Toyota Manufacturing Site

A few weeks ago, I had a chance to tour the Toyota Manufacturing facility located in Columbus, Indiana.  Although this facility has been open since 1990, I never knew it actually existed until I read the following news: “Toyota Material Handling, today announced that it was awarded the Occupational Excellence Achievement Award by the National Safety Council.”

After a long wait, I finally had a chance, as a part of one conference, to tour this site. Although it lasted only a few hours, this tour highlighted some of the cultural and production practices and philosophies that Toyota has successfully used for so many years.  

My observations:

- Before works starts, each area holds a 5-10 minute Asaichi (morning) meeting to discuss the day’s schedule, safety issues, quality concerns, improvement ideas, company news and take attendance.

- The team leaders reconvene every two hours during the entire shift to make sure everybody stays on the same page throughout the day.

- Each manufacturing line has a big manufacturing board that displays the daily production target, the actual number of units produced, lights for each workstation, the anticipated overtime for that day and a running time of any line stoppages.

- The workstation lights are yellow and red. When the yellow light flashes, it is a signal that help is needed within a “Takt Time.”The red light signifies the line is stopped.

- There was not a computer visible on the floor!  As I have already noted, they have an electronic sign that showed the status of each line, but everything else was manual. 

- The whole site, especially the factory floor, was very clean despite all the heavy manufacturing equipment.

- As a rule, all the parts delivered to this plant are in reusable and returnable containers, including the parts shipped in from Japan.

- Toyota lets their plants improve on an individual basis, instead of forcing detailed standard work. That is why changes and innovations are evident everywhere, at every work station. 

- The factory is scheduled to 100% uptime, but the goal is 97%.

Although a few hours are just not even close enough to learn everything, giving just a simple glimpse really, it was enough for me to realize why Toyota is a leader in manufacturing.