Attending the Manufuture Conference in Finland this week, there was a lot of discussion about whether or not TPS was robust enough for both a European Culture or for the types of organisations that will be the most successful in the future.
During a discussion with Professor Westkamper from Stuttgart and several others, I crystalised my thoughts and realised that for organisations that need to focus on customised products, which are growing, have highly variable demand patterns or which are rapidly (and continually) changing, that TPS is not the best vehicle for change.
I am currently working on a new model for change that builds on the best things about TPS and brings in new thinking to meet the needs of public and private organisations in the future.
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Having just picked up a link to Flexiblean I was browsing back a bit to see what else was in here & after reading this I wanted to query this particular post a bit more.
Am I right in thinking that the first Toyota car factories were making lots of different types of vehicles in a low vol market, as opposed to a few types in a high growth high volume market - aka USA post war.
Therefore, does it not make sense to that for highly customisable, varied demand, you could read lots of different types?
I would have thought that if you applied TPS as intended, it would be ideally suited to this type of environment? ie Batches of 1?
Given the current state of automotive manufacture, with incredible options & combinations of colour, trim, extras etc,where the only plants still open in Europe & the US and making money are Toyota, Honda, Nissan etc, does this not suggest this highly customisable products thing is a bit of a excuse?
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your comment and you make some interesting points.
There are two aspects at play - one is about how TPS could be applied and how it is being applied and the second is concerned with the cultural aspects of improvement that underpin TPS.
With most organisations applying TPS within their own four walls high variety, customised products do create problems as their supply chains cannot react fast enough. The points you make about the automotive sector are valid but the automotive sector have a finite number of options which are then combined to create an almost infinite variety of vehicles, but the supply of the component variables used are highly regulated and planned.
For organisations with variable products (think about sub-contractors who do not know what the next job coming in is like) and those with a wide range of different products (which I would argue is different from products with options) then TPS may not be the best approach unless the supply chains are engineered correctly.
There is a seperate issue about cultural differences between Europe and the Far East and even differences in management style between European nations do not fit naturally with the culture of TPS as practised by Toyota.
Thanks for the comment which got me thinking after a long night out!
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