33 principles of Toyota management

Principle 1: management decisions must be based on long-term ideas, even at the expense of short-term financial goals.

Toyota's pursuit of ideas, this sense of purpose, like an organism growing inside Toyota, has become the most important asset.

Toyota, for example, takes the creation of value for customers, society and economy as the starting point and the design of products/services as the starting point. The significance of this mission orientation is that leaders must shoulder the responsibilities that Toyota thinks should be undertaken, which is also the difference between this company and its competitors, and is also the element that most companies trying to imitate Toyota lack.

Principle 2: Establish an uninterrupted operation process to make problems emerge.

Try to reduce the idle time in any work plan or the time waiting for others to work to zero, so that the process will not be interrupted. It is often possible to complete a product or plan with110 of the time required in the past. Uninterrupted process is also prominent in Toyota's entire organizational culture, emphasizing the use of uninterrupted process to create value instead of the general intermittent method of executing a small number of work plans at a time, often stopping, starting, stopping and starting. However, the reason is not only to transmit materials or information quickly, but also to connect processes and people so that problems can occur immediately. Uninterrupted process is the key to promote real continuous improvement process and employee development.

Principle 3: Use "pull back system" to avoid overproduction.

When your customers need spare parts, you must supply them according to the time and quantity they require. What should you do? The most common way to deal with it is to rent a warehouse and store a lot of stocks. Toyota's experience proves that this is a wrong solution.

In fact, piling up inventory according to the predicted or guaranteed demand almost always leads to chaos and fire, and the products that customers want are just out of stock. Toyota found a better way to imitate the operation mode of American supermarkets. Supermarkets only maintain a relatively small inventory of each product, and often replenish the inventory on the shelves according to the actual quantity taken from the shelves by customers.

Principle 4: Let the workload be even, and work like a tortoise in a tortoise-rabbit race.

The only way to truly create an uninterrupted process is to stabilize the workload to a certain extent, that is, the "black army card". Toyota tries to find many ingenious ways to make the workload as even as possible, and flexibly use the manpower of contracting companies and suppliers to cope with the sudden increase and peak demand.

Principle 5: Establish a culture of immediate suspension of problem solving and attach importance to quality control from the beginning.

Toyota has won the prestigious Deming Quality Award in Japan and every award set by Powell Company, a professional automobile research institution. Providing customers with quality is the driving force of Toyota's value proposition. What makes Toyota unique in quality work? This can be traced back to Satoshi Toyoda, the founder of the company, who watched his grandmother work like a slave in front of a manual loom. Later, Akio Toyoda invented the power loom and solved an annoying problem of the power loom.

When a yarn is broken, if no one finds this problem, and stops the loom, connects the yarn and restarts it, then the cloth woven after the yarn is broken is defective and a waste. The solution is to build a device with detection ability like human in the loom, and stop the loom as soon as the yarn breaks. In order to warn the operator that there is something wrong with the loom and he needs help, Akio Toyoda invented the "andon" system to signal that he needs help. This invention has become one of the main pillars of Toyota production system-automation. This is the basis of Toyota's concept of "internal quality". When there is a problem, you must stop the operation immediately and solve the problem immediately. Current productivity may be affected, but identifying problems and proposing solutions will improve long-term productivity.

Principle 6: Work standardization is the basis of continuous improvement and empowerment of employees.

Predictable and repeatable process is the foundation of uninterrupted process and post-pulling system. Toyota found that standardizing current best practices can enable employees to learn from what they have learned so far, continue to improve their work based on this standard, and then incorporate the improvement into the new standard. If there is no standardized process, individual employees may use their own working methods to achieve significant improvement, but no one can learn from it unless there is an impromptu discussion. Besides, when an individual leaves this job, all his studies will be lost. Standards under standardization can be used as the starting point for truly lasting innovation.

Principle 7: Use visual control so that problems cannot be hidden.

In any Toyota factory, you will see paper billboards circulating throughout the factory. They use flip charts to solve problems. The working team updates the chart drawn on the paper every day. Even in the after-sales service parts warehouse where thousands of parts are constantly flowing and transported, the visual assistance of entities can be seen everywhere. In Toyota's working environment, there are signals and signs everywhere. Why?

Because people are visual animals, they need to see their own work, parts racks and parts supermarkets, and easily determine whether they are in a standard state. When people look at the well-designed charts on the wall, they can have an effective discussion. If they have to look at the computer screen, employees' attention will shift from the workplace to the computer screen. Working robots don't care whether the factory has visual AIDS, but people will be affected. Toyota always designs equipment and systems that can assist employees.

Principle 8: Use reliable and fully tested technology to support people and processes.

Technology enables people to perform work according to standard processes; Technology should be used to support employees rather than replace them. The status of employees should not be subordinate to technology, in other words, the status of process should always be higher than technology.

Toyota emphasizes stability, reliability and predictability, so it is very careful to avoid using untested technologies in business processes, manufacturing systems or products, and is unwilling to adopt them rashly without specifying the exact requirements of a certain technology and fully investigating it. The company rejects all technologies that conflict with Toyota's philosophy and operating principles.

On the other hand, Toyota always pursues its own technology to keep up with the trend and encourages employees to break the ideological boundaries when considering new ways of working. If a suitable technology has been investigated and fully tested, it should be implemented quickly and effectively.

Principle 9: Cultivate employees who thoroughly understand and support the company's philosophy to become leaders.

Toyota's leaders are self-cultivated within the organization, not hired from outside. Toyota doesn't think the manager's job is just to finish the work, and has good interpersonal skills. Managers are regarded as the shoulders of the Toyota model. More than any employee, they need to show Toyota's ideas in everything they do, including the decisions they make and how to make them. They must be instructors of Toyota models and have a detailed understanding of the actual work.

Principle 10: Cultivate and develop outstanding talents and teams who believe in the company's philosophy.

When talking with many Toyota employees (they usually call employees "team colleagues"), you will obviously find that when they talk about Toyota, Toyota's ideas and their work, there are more similarities than differences, and there is a strong * * *, which forms a solid culture among members. Toyota has a solid internal culture, which they often call their DNA. Toyota also understands the importance of maintaining this DNA among all its colleagues and constantly strives to strengthen its corporate culture.

The essence of Toyota mode is that excellent individuals and teams pursue the concept of Toyota production system in order to achieve excellent results. Tools are just tools, and any company can imitate them, but even if a skilled craftsman places tools casually and lets others steal them easily, he will not worry about which layman with tools will take his place. Just imitating Toyota's kanban system and lighting system will not make your company a world-class lean enterprise. What really achieves the effect of Toyota production system is the users of those tools and the way they use them.

Principle 1 1: Attach importance to the company's business partner and supplier network, challenge them and help them improve.

Toyota will not use and hurt its business partners, and try to extract the value created by them at the lowest price. Toyota regards business partners as an extension of Toyota, and part of Toyota's contribution to society is its support for business partners, which makes them better because of their cooperation with Toyota. This is part of the concept of "respecting human nature". Challenge is one of the core values of Toyota model and a key factor to promote the growth and development of employees and business partners.

Principle 12: Go to the site in person and thoroughly understand the situation.

If we don't fully understand the actual situation, we can't solve the problem and make improvement, which means we must trace back to the source, personally observe and deeply analyze the situation, especially the "on-site". Don't just make inferences based on the information reported by others or the contents displayed on the computer screen, and solve the problem remotely.

In Toyota, if you are responsible for proposing possible solutions to the problem, the company may ask if you have been to the site in person. If your answer is: "No, but I have read relevant reports. Then you'd better be prepared. The company will assign you a task: go to the site to check it out in person. This is the basic belief of Toyota, and those responsible for solving problems and making decisions must have a deep understanding of the situation. Even senior managers should check the situation in person as far as possible. Toyota's culture does not accept only superficial understanding from subordinates' summary reports.

Principle 13: Make a decision without impatience, take * * * knowledge as the basis, thoroughly consider all possible options, and implement the decision quickly.

Japan's management mode is to slow down when making decisions, so as to achieve * * * knowledge and speed up implementation. Toyota is no exception, but the key is not to acquire knowledge, but to explore possible problems and solutions and find the best solution. Toyota's approach is to ask "Why?" Five times. Thoroughly analyze the root of the problem, and the superficial problem is often not the real reason. When a Toyota employee reports a problem to the boss, the boss may ask the first question: "How do you know this is the real problem? The second question is: "Who did you discuss it with? Do they agree to this solution? The so-called "nemawashi" refers to discussing problems and possible solutions with all stakeholders and affected people, collecting their opinions and reaching a consensus on solutions. Although this process takes time, it helps to expand the exploration of solutions and lay the foundation for rapid implementation once a decision is made.

Principle 14: Become a learning organization through continuous reflection and improvement.

After establishing a stable process, we should immediately start continuous improvement, including using the famous "five questions and why analysis" and "planning, inspection and action" tools to determine the root causes of inefficiency or slowness, and put forward effective countermeasures.

When your company has a stable process, everyone can clearly see the waste and inefficiency, and there will be opportunities for continuous improvement and learning, but learning can only happen through personnel. Therefore, the company must also have stable personnel, slow promotion and a very cautious successor system to protect the knowledge base of the organization. Learning refers to moving forward on the basis of the past, rather than starting all over again for every new project and every new manager after taking office.

Westerners regard criticism as a negative thing and admit that their limitations are a symbol of weakness; In Toyota, the situation is just the opposite. The most obvious strength is that someone can honestly point out incorrect things and put forward countermeasures to prevent these things from happening again.

In Japan, "sinicization" has a broader meaning and is not unique to Toyota. When children do something wrong, parents will ask them to reflect, which means that you are sorry for your mistake and swear that you won't make the same mistake again. Even after the successful launch of the new car, Toyota engineers will take the time to reflect on their newly completed plans and put forward countermeasures to prevent the same mistakes from being made again in the future. Introspection is an attitude and idea, and it is the core element to promote continuous improvement.