How does Toyota Production Mode (TPS) penetrate into functional departments from the production site?

The first is an overview of Toyota Production Mode (TPS): it is based on Toyota's management philosophy, that is, "completely eliminate all waste to ensure that high-quality products can be delivered to customers at reasonable prices in time." The word "customer" not only refers to the final consumer who actually buys Toyota products, but also includes all the people involved in the downstream process of work.

"Self-discipline, Jidoka (automation of human intelligence)" and "just-in-time" constitute the two pillars of TPS. "Jidoka" is not simple automation, but automation with human intelligence.

In other words, the equipment operates in a way that integrates human intelligence, so that when an abnormality is found, production will be stopped to prevent defects. It is to ensure the quality in the production process and eliminate the need for people to simply supervise the machine.

On the other hand, the concept of timeliness is based on the idea that only what is needed, the time needed and the quantity needed are made.

Then why does this meeting have a long name-"the first joint meeting of the independent research institute of Toyota production mode in the workplace of technical department", which can be understood as the occasion of TPS independent research, but what is the "workplace of technical department"?

In Toyota, Japan, the combination of "things" of clerical posts and "skills" of technical posts is called "the workplace of technical departments". So as to be different from the on-site work of the factory that actually manufactures cars. Specifically, it refers to "non-"production sites such as human resources, finance, corporate public relations, procurement and software development.

People who work in the production site always carefully identify the problems in each process and constantly strive to achieve improvement. The activity of autonomous learning and practicing TPS (hereinafter referred to as autonomous research) has also lasted for more than 30 years, with the aim of cultivating talents with the same language. These efforts are the main driving force of Toyota's growth.

TPS is sometimes considered only applicable to factories with production lines. The company-wide independent research project, which started last summer, aims to make people who work in offices realize that TPS can be applied anywhere.