TPS Benchmarking

An Up Close Look at a Toyota Assembly Line

Avatar photo By Jon Miller Updated on May 22nd, 2017

There is a series of six videos on the Toyota Europe website titled “Your Toyota is My Toyota”. Team members from the Burnaston, UK factory explain their roles in building quality in to Toyota vehicles. Individuals from the assembly, R&D, quality assurance line, the paint shop, the press shop, and the qality function in the press shop each give us 2-minute glimpses inside a Toyota factory.

It’s fun to see how many “lean” examples you can spot in each video. Many are there for just a second or two in the background. In the opening scene of the assembly line “Bridie” video pictured above we can see an andon cord, the pitch lines and color-coded markings of the fixed position stop system, and much more.

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Many thanks to Patrick P for spotting and sharing this with us.


  1. George

    June 11, 2010 - 7:02 am
    Reply

    … I would also note the obvious and exemplary 5S condition of that assembly line. Reminds me of the assembly-line at MBUSI… Lot’s of Toyota influence at that facility.

  2. Peter

    June 11, 2010 - 9:24 am
    Reply

    Agree about the fantastic level of 4S in each video!

  3. Joseph

    June 12, 2010 - 4:50 pm
    Reply

    Jon.
    To explain the difference between 5S & 4S as stated above. To any one that does not know. 5S is the Western standard. sort,set, shine, standardise & SUSTAIN. In the Japanese culture they are so self disciplined that once they have done 1S-4S they automatically expect people to SUSTAIN the work that has been done. So they call it 4S. Us Westerners have to have 5S so we are told to keep up the established standard “NOW SUSTAIN IT”. Hence the extra “S”.
    If you looked at the video of the Trim lines and only saw the 4S or 5S then you missed the most important thing. The younger operators in the background were working at above a normal and the older operators were working below a normal. This would cause friction in most work places as they all get the same money. I thought they were all Superman.
    The YASAKI RACKS were quite good. Also the manual handling aids were ergonomically easy to use.
    The statement by Birdie about 1000 andon pulls per day being 1000 problems solved may sound good but in fact many of them will be repeated day after day so they were not solved. It sound good though on the video.
    5S or 4S it is a GREEN field site do not compare it with a good BROWN field site.

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