Lean Production: Is Toyota Fool-Proof Organization?

@ishan-nohePN • Oct 23, 2024

Oct 23, 2024

1.2K

Lean production is a concept that many organization claim to be following. This is also not an exception for the people who offer Shigeo Shingo prize for best manufacturing plant.
However, Toyota has proved time and again that 'Kaizen' i.e., constant improvement is always possible.

I came across few who were of the opinion that those who feel they are lean are actually fooling themselves. This is because there are less than 1% of companies in this world following the Toyota production System (TPS).

Now I have three questions:

1. Is applying TPS possible everywhere?
2. Is Toyota model sustainable?
3. What are the business models that you find are better than/ close to TPS?

What do you feel? ☕

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Kaustubh Katdare

@thebigk • Feb 15, 2012

Isn't it very context specific?
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ISHAN TOPRE

@ishan-nohePN • Feb 15, 2012

ok, I will put my points bit by bit.

The_Big_K
Isn't it very context specific?
To say simply, you know what is lean production, right?
My question is can we apply it everywhere? To give you an example, you own a website. Can you apply these Japanese principles of management to boost your traffic here?

P.S: For 3D entities like Hotels, manufacturing plants, lean manufacturing has already proved to be profitable. Even Flipkart can make use of this but what about other websites and blogs?
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silverscorpion

@silverscorpion-iJKtdQ • Feb 15, 2012

^^ I'm going to assume that what is called the Toyota way or Toyota's formula for success is not just comprised of lean manufacturing, and it also contains other quality assurance methods like 5S or six sigma (If it's anything else, that's ok too. I simply know only these 2, so..)

So, if you are asking about using those quality assurance methods in various places, yes that is definitely possible. But as for lean production or lean 'manufacturing', I think that is meant to be used in manufacturing plants, and so, it'll only be effective for manufacturing or producing. It at least doesn't make sense for me to use a manufacturing method in a website based business, since, we are not manufacturing anything. But if it's about other quality control mechanisms, we can for example, implement 5S in the website's hosts. I dunno how helpful it will be, though.
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ISHAN TOPRE

@ishan-nohePN • Feb 15, 2012

silverscorpion
^^ I'm going to assume that what is called the Toyota way or Toyota's formula for success is not just comprised of lean manufacturing, and it also contains other quality assurance methods like 5S or six sigma (If it's anything else, that's ok too. I simply know only these 2, so..)

So, if you are asking about using those quality assurance methods in various places, yes that is definitely possible. But as for lean production or lean 'manufacturing', I think that is meant to be used in manufacturing plants, and so, it'll only be effective for manufacturing or producing. It at least doesn't make sense for me to use a manufacturing method in a website based business, since, we are not manufacturing anything. But if it's about other quality control mechanisms, we can for example, implement 5S in the website's hosts. I dunno how helpful it will be, though.
You got me right. Your assumption is what I was trying to convey. 😀
Anyways by meaning lean, I meant that to reduce waste. Flipkart is a website though it is not a computer company. It maintains inventory. So naturally, all the theory of lean applies to FlipKart.

Manufacturing can be taken in the sense of providing services. In other words, finding suitable ways which reduce lead time.

I would like to quote the example of Captain Gopinath who made air travel cheaper. He basically applied tried to eradicate waste in the airlines business. He bought smaller planes, this lead to low parking charges. Selling tickets on places like petrol pumps was another way of reaching general public. So I agree that we can become lean by avoiding waste.

I would like to know, how do you apply 5 sigma to web hosts to improve quality?
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