“Flying” in the Toyota Way
Posted by Colin Hensley on August 07, 2009 in Uncategorized
On our recent vacation I had a lot of fun on the flying trapeze. This involves flinging yourself into space hanging on to a bar, then after executing some physical contortions to get into a specific position, letting go and being caught by the brave catcher at the other side.
As I prepared to leap, I thought about the teamwork and coordination that was required to be able to welcome a complete novice to the trapeze and an hour later have them being caught. There are four people in the team. The first is on the ground checking belts, teaching new positions and keeping things in good order. The second is at the top of the ladder; they fasten on the safety rope, and get the flyer into position, before sending them off into the void. The third is the catcher, who swings upside down waiting for the flyer to head directly at them. The fourth is basically in-charge, and controls the safety rope, and the overall timing of the activity.
Each one of the team takes responsibility for the flyer at their point in the process, and ensures that no problems are passed on to the next person. It’s a demonstration of great teamwork, combining synchronisation with complete trust in each other. Furthermore, giving the flyer the chance to repeat their position a number of times allows them to continuously improve their skill. I realised this is very like the Toyota’s “Total Quality Control” system in many ways, where you always depend on the person before you to deliver you what’s needed, and importantly take responsibility for delivering to your customer, the next person in the process. This way you can build-in quality from the start. Like so many things in our company, it’s a very logical approach to take. For me what is special is that it is formalised and spread through people’s day-to-day thinking through on-the-job training.
Thanks Andrea, Nathalie, Guillaume and Florent, it was a great experience, and a great lesson.
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Comments(0)Taking a long drive and wishing we were “there already!”
Posted by Colin Hensley on April 15, 2009 in Safety
I feel a little guilty as I have just skipped a week on the blog, because I was away on holiday. We went to Italy to enjoy some spring skiing. This meant a return trip of almost 2000km experiencing driving conditions in 5 different countries*.
It was actually quite an eye-opener to see how different driving styles are from country to country, though I won’t get into any of the details here, at the risk of damaging international relations. However, as I sped (figuratively not literally, of course) down the highways, through the toll-booths, and we wove up the mountains I really started to wish that we had already implemented some of the systems that are parts of Toyota’s Integrated Safety Management Concept.
Long drives can be tiring and even a small lapse of attention can increase the risk of an accident, so I particularly like the work that is assists driving by linking to the navigation system. We must have entered and exited 20 different highways, and passed through dozens of villages as we went along. It would have been a great help to have the car give me some tips and warnings as I went along. But that’s for the future, if you are interested in more future technologies have a look at TMC’s terrific website which explains all about the things that are being developed at Toyota for the future.
* (Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland and Italy)
