IT drives Toyota’s lean improvement

Gearing up for a 16% increase in car production from next month, but with its press shop running at full capacity, Toyota Manufacturing UK at Burnaston, Derbyshire has bowed to the inevitable. It's harnessed IT – in this case a new breed of system for shopfloor monitoring and performance analytics aimed at identifying and prioritising opportunities for improvement. What's interesting about this story is twofold. First, Toyota is seeing the kind of success that demonstrates just how valuable the right systems at the factory level can be. Second, it's being done at a company widely acknowledged as the originator of lean manufacturing – not one renowned for looking to IT for solutions, particularly at the shopfloor level. From a production management perspective Toyota is all about classic lean visual 'pull' signals and takt time manipulation on its assembly lines for demand management. That pulls material through from its press, weld and paint shops etc, as opposed to MRP-based 'push' scheduling, works orders and the rest. Finding the constraints However, with the press shop in particular up against it, the company decided there must be ways of doing better. "We knew there was room for productivity improvements based on what other Toyota plants were achieving," a Toyota source told us, referring to the firm's global performance benchmarking. But there were two issues. On the one hand, its existing manual data collection system wasn't finding the problems, much less the solutions. On the other, it was itself wasteful of considerable resource – not exactly in line with the lean message. This is a substantial plant, and it's not difficult to guess at how time consuming and ultimately flawed it must have been. "Also, because the system was manual, the reports could only provide a historical picture, preventing remedial action being taken immediately," continues our source. Just so. Fact is, we're all familiar with the problems, for example, around maintenance versus operations. On this scale, sensible understanding around shortcomings of plant and procedures without electronic systems that are real-time, independent and analytical just isn't going to happen. So Toyota approached MVI Technology to implement its real-time performance management (RPM) solution, Eventsengine. It's not like regular production SFDC (shopfloor data collection), nor a simple machine monitoring system: the system records stoppages in real time, prompting operators to enter reasons on pre-coded configurable line-side touch screens, and to take immediate appropriate action. But it also provides the information as a KPIs dashboard to management and any other part of the business via web browsers. System implementation began at Burnaston in January, and the system is due to be fully live on all eight press shop lines soon. It's not replacing everything: "Our management systems are highly visual and visible, and Eventsengine will help us improve what we've got." In fact, it's augmenting the Toyota 'Andon' visual management system – boards displaying the current status of the lines. The new system will provide 'Andon' per line projected onto a plasma screen with the latest statistics on how that line has been performing, minute-by-minute. Toyota will also get live Pareto analysis, not just on the line but also down to part and SKU level. "[Before], if anybody wanted any stratification of data, they had to go back to data collection sheets and do it all manually," says the source. "That takes a long time so you tend not to make too many requests. Eventsengine can do it all instantaneously. It also automates our escalation [alerting] system." It's easy to see how the new system will reveal the required 16% capacity. Not only will it release the manpower that fed the manual system, but the live and structured data is going to facilitate both mutual understanding (between operations, maintenance and management across shifts) and prioritised improvement. Worth serious consideration this. Other companies we've heard about doing similar work include: Kellogg, Kerry Foods, Corus Automotive, Calypso Soft Drinks, Gillette, Northern Foods, Associated British Foods, Manor Bakeries, Kimberly Clark, Mondi Paper, Cadbury, Trebor Bassett and Smith & Nephew Medical.