Rule 2: Every customer-supplier connection must be direct, and there must be an unambiguous yes-or-no way to send requests and receive responses.
The second rule of TPS rule explains how people who perform the process get connected with one another. What this basically means is that the connection between processes must be:
- Standardized and direct
- Specify clearly the people involved
- The form and quantity of the goods and services to be provided
- The way requests are made by each customer
- The expected time in which the requests will be met
The rule creates a supplier-customer relationship between each processes and employees in the operations.
Rule 3: The pathway for every product and service must be simple and direct.
All production lines at Toyota have to been set up so that every product and service flows along a simple and specified path. This ensures that goods and services do not flow necessarily flow to the next available person or machine but to a specific person or machine. It has also enables Toyota to create flexibility and accommodate variety of product lines in its operations. The defined path will not change unless the production line is expressly redesigned.
Rule 4: Any improvement must be made in accordance with the scientific method, under the guidance of a teacher, at the lowest possible level in the organization.
Rule 4 stipulates that any improvement activities made on the shop floor to the operational activities, to connections between workers or machines or to pathways must be made in accordance with the scientific method. The activities are to be under the guidance of a teacher and carried out at the lowest possible organizational level who is the employees.
To be able to do this effectively, Toyota first taught their employees to improve their problem-solving skills by encouraging them to redesign their own work. This has become the first step of problem solving experienced by the employees buy focusing on the own work standards. Then the employees were assigned a leader who trained, coach and facilitate them to solve the problems systematically by formulating action plan and testing hypotheses. Such methodology has taught them how to use the scientific method to design their team's work in accordance with the first three rules.
Toyota's Notion of the Ideal
By inculcating the scientific method at all levels of the workforce, Toyota ensures that people will clearly state the expectations they will be testing when they implement the changes they have planned (Spear and Bowen)
This notion of the ideal is very pervasive. Workers at Toyota have a concrete definition in mind which consistent throughout the organization. Very specifically, for Toyota's workers, the output of an ideal person, group of people, or machine:
- Is defect free (that it, it has the features and performance the customer expects)
- Can be delivered one request at a time (a batch size of one)
- Can be supplied on demand in the version requested
- Can be delivered immediately
- Can be produced without wasting any materials, labor, energy, or other resources (such as costs associated with inventory); and
- Can be produced in a work environment that is safe physically, emotionally, and professionally for every employee
Small group activities
SGA may be defined as informal, voluntary small groups organized within the company to carry out specific task in the workshop (Masaki Imai). According to Hirota and Veda, the SGA promotes itself and satisfies company goals as well as individual employee need through concrete activities. Professor Emeritus Kunio Okada of Tokyo University argued that SGA should be integrated into the corporate structure so that their activities can complement and enhance other organizational activities.
SGA has become the primary mechanism and nucleus of the strategic implementation of TPM. It is therefore extremely important that this factor is considered in the TPM framework.
Depending on their aims SGA come in various forms:
- QC Circle
- Zero Defect (ZD) Movement
- Non-error Movement
- Level-up Movement
- Mini Think Tank
- Suggestion Group
- Safety Group
- Workshop Involvement or Workshop Talk Group
- Productivity Committee
- Management by Objective (MBO)
Japanese organizations strongly believed that their primary mission is to produce superior quality product or services that satisfy market requirement. To achieve this mission at an accelerated speed, they have employed virtually every means available such as statistical tools, TQC and QC Circles. They have succeeded in achieving their mission through the adoption of such strategy.
One of the most prominent SGA is the QC Circle. It is a small group of departmental production operators and line leaders who have volunteered to spent time outside of their regular hours to solve departmental quality problems The QC circle movement originated in Japan in 1962. It began as a study groups and was later focusing problem solving in the manufacturing floor. Today the QC Circle activities have expanded to include suppliers and contractors.
