Free Scholarship at the Lean Six Sigma Academy

My friend Ron Pereira started a blog two weeks ago called Lean Six Sigma Academy. The articles so far have been an interesting mix of topics such as Process Mapping – Lean or Six Sigma Tool?, CAVE People, Lean or Six Sigma?, Six Sigma and JIT, The Heated Law of Dispersions, The Forgotten Ms, and The Evolution of Dance (?). Take advantage of your free scholarship at the Lean Six Sigma Academy and enjoy Ron’s insights.
Yesterday the Lean Six Sigma Academy pointed out this very good 4-minute Youtube video on the the Toyota factory in Cambridge, Ontario.
On the question of whether doing so much kaizen does or does not put the workers’ jobs at risk, Jeff Leclair, Manager of Training & Development says:
“We don’t lay people off. There hasn’t been a layoff worldwide since 1950.”
What is the Toyota culture? One of the senior managers interviews says:
“We set up a standard. Then we work hard to reach the standard. Then we raise the bar. That is our culture.”
One question that was not asked is “How far does Toyota’s kaizen culture extend beyond the factory floor?” At minute 1:59 in the Youtube video there is a very quick glimpse of an open office at Toyota. The 5S is not so good, and that could be on indication of how far Toyota has taken their kaizen culture.
Back in the 1980s Taiichi Ohno was critical of the lack of effective rationalization efforts or kaizen at Toyota’s administrative areas, in chapter 26 titled There Are No Supervisors at the Administrative Gemba in Taiichi Ohno’s Workplace Management.
A couple of corrections to the announcer’s commentary, just so false information doesn’t perpetrate “Toyota builds cars the same way Dell builds computers.” It’s the other way around, actually. And “built in quality” is jidoka (not jikoda) but close enough.
Nice find, and keep up the good work Ron!

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