“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)“Keep your eyes on them there hills… the PHV is a comin’”
Posted by Colin Hensley on May 15, 2009 in 360° approach, Green Technologies
This week is really about a few updates of previous posts. At the end of March I wrote about the Plug-in hybrids that we are testing, and the plans for enlarging this test in Europe. At the time I just mentioned the cars that will be going to Strasbourg, well things are starting to move on quite nicely. We are now in discussion to bring the cars to the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, and as you can imagine are keen to work with other countries too if we can. As a consequence, it looks like we will certainly need more than the originally planned number of 150 cars here in Europe.
This is great for us, as we will have even more data to evaluate, and more opinions and experiences of the drivers who are participating in this limited lease pilot. PHV won’t be ready for mass commercialisation for a little while, but when it is, we believe PHV will really complement the Prius, and the other full hybrids in our line-up.
I also promised to update you on the Toyota Technology Challenge in the UK. Well, the final is tomorrow at the Burnaston plant, and there will be thirteen teams competing from all across the country. The teams have already won their regional heats and are now competing for the national title in each of the categories. Seven will compete in the solar powered vehicle category and six in the PIC microcontroller category. Good luck to all of the teams, and, I will, of course, let you know who is finally triumphant
Feeling technologically challenged? - these kids aren’t…
Posted by Colin Hensley on April 02, 2009 in Uncategorized
I grew up as science loving son of a science teacher & electrical engineer. Unsurprisingly, I am always happy to see projects or activities that help to instil enthusiasm for science into school kids. A really nice example of this is the Toyota Technology Challenge which is aimed at 11-16 year olds in the UK. It is funded by Toyota Fund for Europe, and run by TMUK in collaboration with Rapid.
There are two categories in the challenge. One is building a solar powered car, the other a car with a microcontroller enabling it to detect and avoid obstacles. You can see all of the details in the link above, but the basic idea is this:
• The team registers to participate
• A kit with everything they need to make the vehicle is sent to them
• They produce a folder all about their planned vehicle and submit it (Feb)
• Folder judging – best entries invited to one of 7 regional finals (April)
• At the regionals the folders are presented and vehicles race
• Winners are invited to national final at TMUK (16 May)
• More presentations and racing to find the champions!
This is the 5th year this has been run as a national challenge. Each year they receive about 400 registrations and typically about a quarter will actually submit their entry folder. The first of the regional finals will be held next week in Scotland, so good luck to all of the teams, and watch this space to find out who is successful.
These will be the engineers and scientists of the next decades, developing the technologies and products that we will need to ensure we have a sustainable future. So it’s really important that we get as many students as possible involved in this type of activity, and celebrate their enthusiasm.
Welcome to our new blog!
Posted by Colin Hensley on January 12, 2009 in 360° approach
Dear Reader,
Welcome to our new blog. My name is Colin Hensley and I am responsible for Corporate Affairs and Planning at Toyota Motor Europe. I’ll be posting here regularly from now. I’ve been a great believer in the internet for a long time, and I am very excited that we’ll finally be able to share our thoughts with you here and keep you up to date with what’s happening at Toyota in Europe. I’m especially keen to share with you our environmental initiatives, and our commitment to local society.
It will take a bit of time to get this ‘right’, but please bear with me. Based on your feedback I’ll try to apply kaizen (or continuous improvement) and write about the things you would like to know about.
In time, I plan to invite other colleagues to become involved, so that this will be a real team effort on our part, giving you some things to think about, some to talk about and some, well, some that I hope will inspire you.
So, here’s my first post, after reading it please take a minute and let me know what you think.
Best regards,
Colin
