Improve your business: the Toyota Way
How can we improve our business so as to become more competitive in the market? By replicating the Toyota Way of course, an organisational system of production founded on principles in contrast with those of mass production promoted on Henry Ford’s assembly lines. This program was developed between 1948 and 1975 by the engineer Taiichi Ōno and lies at the heart of the most recent streamline production methods.
This method of business communication focuses above all on the idea of doing as much as possible using less. That means that the main objective is to increase a firm’s productivity while using few resources. All this depends on the fact that, when this principle started to become more widespread, Japan (Toyota’s country of origin) had been decimated by a war which it had lost and from which it needed to recover as soon as possible.
The aim of the Toyota Way is the elimination of overload, inconsistency and wastage. Furthermore, it also focuses on structuring the production process to enable results to be obtained with the utmost ease. This procedure must be flexible and not cause stress. If the entire procedure works correctly, great advantages can be drawn from it, especially regarding the economic and financial aspects.
Specific areas where wastage should be avoided are: over-elaborate production (carrying out more work on a product than that required by the clientele), over-production (production of a greater quantity than that requested by the client), re-elaboration (going over a process several times to remove any errors present), stockpiling (and all that regards stock), intellect (not using workers’ constructive ideas), transport (and the needless transportation of products) and movement (carried out by workers while they are waiting).
This method is based on constant improvement, respect towards other individuals, an outlook based on a long-term philosophy, the awareness that by using the right procedure you can obtain the right results, the certainty that by valuing the company, the people who work with you will improve and the ability to understand that by resolving problems you can optimize organisational learning.
These are the principles on which the Toyota business communication method is based: clear and straightforward guidelines to help you do more and waste less thereby increasing performance and earnings.
Translated by Joanne Beckwith
