The Teacher Becomes the Student – Toyota – Back to the Future
Larry Cote
A two billion dollar lesson is tough for any corporation to survive. And it is especially tough when your company was one of the best in the world at avoiding these types of problems. What exaggerates the seriousness of this issue is Toyota was the one who taught all the others, both manufacturing and service organizations how to avoid mistakes and build the best product and provide the best service. All of us who have studied the Toyota Production System will analyze how and why Toyota allowed such a costly mistake to happen. The only one with the answers to these questions is Toyota. In fact, Toyota is one of a limited number of companies that could do a proper analysis of a major problem such as this – interestingly, the thinking behind Lean could have prevented the problem and now the same thinking will be the means for resolving it.
As they do their due diligence and examine the causes, they will likely uncover many reasons for this misstep. Their challenge will be to study the entire ‘system’ end-to-end from product design and development to production internally and with suppliers to assembly in the vehicle. From that analysis and data, they will determine the root causes and the opportunities for improvement. The next step will be to transform the end-to-end process and develop a new standard process that will eliminate the possibility of those imperfect activities from repeating.
It is interesting that Toyota who was the teacher to the world, has now had to become the student of their own teachings and lessons. They must go back to the future and realize that this was a lesson to them and all of us. Lean is not something you do for a short time; it is fragile, like anything else in this world and is vulnerable. It must be reinforced constantly and there is no room for distractions or relaxing the focus and support of the thinking and activities required to sustain the improvements you have made. When you relax your thinking and passion then natural disintegration (atrophy) sets in, even in the best organizations.
Toyota may have lost their way because they wanted to be the biggest. As they taught us, Lean is about doing more with what you have and doing it better (quality), faster (delivery) and at less cost. Focusing on productivity and being the biggest is a recipe for disaster and is not Lean. You must at minimum have three measures – quality, speed and cost. Two measures will not work and one definitely will not – this type of monitoring and motivation will lead to a failure.
Toyota has failed and now the important outcome will be whether they can go back and realize they had the solution all the time – Lean. It is interesting that Toyota who is so accustomed to being the teachers to the world, will now have to go "back to the future" and become the student; a student of their own history, philosophy and teachings; a student of what made them great in the first place.
And in a back handed sort of way, they just taught us another extremely critical lesson – Lean works and it is critical but must not to be used temporarily or intermittently.
American Statesman, Scientist, Philosopher, Printer, Writer and Inventor of the 18th century Benjamin Franklin wrote on the subject of reputation:
"It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it"
What Toyota has experienced, in the last year, serves as reminder to all organizations that have started their own Lean Journey; Lean is not something you do for a short time, like anything else in this world, we have to continually work at it (the true definition of KAIZEN). Lean must be reinforced constantly by Senior Management and there is no room for distractions or relaxing the focus. When you relax your thinking and passion then natural disintegration (atrophy) sets in, even in the best organizations.
The competition should be very worried! As we know, we learn more from mistakes than from doing things right all the time – success is a breeding ground for failure as complacency and over confidence set in. Toyota must learn from this management error and turn it into an opportunity to become even stronger. It is their choice. The eyes of the business world are upon them, not to mention consumers, and this will be a real test of character of those who Lead Toyota today.
"A man's reputation is what other people think of him; his character is what he really is".
Anonymous