This website contains a whole series of articles on the Toyota Way, customised for use in a service industry setting. It includes PDCA, Horenso, 5-why and visuals.
The site also has downloadable tutorials, templates and tools for you to use.
Kaizen
- Warping forward with Kaizen - an introduction to the whole kaizen concept, and how PDCA, horenso, 5-why and visuals fit into the model.
- Kaizen: Putting it all together - how to put together PDCA, horenso, 5-whys and visual control to give you kaizen.
- Why kaizen implementation fails: six real reasons - an insight into what elements in an organization, if not dealt with, will destroy any kaizen efforts.
- Kaizen is an extremely powerful change management tool - kaizen might be a gradual improvement tool, but it also is one of the most powerful change management methodologies available to practitioners.
- Make small, incremental changes for effective kaizen - kaizen is not about making amazing changes happen over night. It's about a series of small changes, which cascade into something bigger over time.
- Kaizen can save a company in crisis - kaizen may be a bit slow to save a company on the brink of disaster, but it does have a part to play in making sure the company never heads there again.
- Kaizen can stifle innovation and risk taking - kaizen might make existing things better, but there is one major weakness in that it doesn't make anything new. Find out how to avoid this pitfall.
- Using checklists in kaizen - understanding how checklists can help save lives, and your work processes
- Strategy for building a kaizen environment - overcome natural human resistance to change and kaizen.
- How to develop a Kaizen Mindset - five of the most important things to build into a company's philosophy
- Small teams are key to learning to do kaizen - experiment, experiment, experiment.
- Taking the First Step with the PDCA Cycle - A primer on how PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) works in each step.
- PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act): Extended Diagram - Describes how to use the extended version of the PDCA diagram, which includes Problem Finding, Display, Clear and Acknowledge.
- Keeping Track of PDCA Status - Contains a downloadable wall chart for you to keep track of project PDCA statuses.
- Achieving 360-degree Communication with Ho-Ren-So - using ho-ren-so to ensure all parties stay in the communication loop.
- Visualizing Horenso to Ensure Effective Communication - a downloadable chart for you to use to ensure ho-ren-so is conducted properly.
- An Introduction to the 5-whys - Explains the basic concept of 5-why and how it works.
- 5-whys Analysis using a Table - How to perform 5-why analysis using an Excel spreadsheet. Includes a downloadable template and tutorial.
- Using a Fishbone/Ishikawa Diagram to Perform 5-why Analysis - Learn how to use a fishbone diagram (also known as an Ishikawa diagram) to visualize and focus your 5-why analysis.
- 5-Whys Weaknesses - learn about the limitations of 5-why, and how to overcome them.
- The 5-whys analysis FAQ - all the common questions about the five-whys analysis answered.
- Get your experts on the ground to do the five-whys and you'll have a superior outcome - why the 5-whys is better when used as a bottom-up analysis tool.
- The Three Rules of Effective Visuals (Mieruka) - Explains the basic concepts and rules governing effective visuals
- The Four Different Types of Visuals - Classifies the different types of visuals seen in a Toyota entity into four distinct and separate categories: identification, informative, instructional and planning, or the 3i1p. Also provides some basic examples from Toyota for each category.
- Mieruka: More Examples - Identification - provides more examples from Toyota factories showing how they use "Identification" visuals.
- Mieruka: More Examples - Informative - more examples which fall under the "Informative" category.
- Mieruka: More Examples - Instructional - plenty of examples which are classified as "Instructional"
- Mieruka: More Examples - Planning - large visual control examples used during planning
- The most effective visuals are simple - with an example of why
- Genchi genbutsu case study: how it helped Toyota Tsusho win a multi-million dollar contract - looks at an example of where genchi genbutsu has had phenomenal success
- Genchi genbutsu and why 'seeing it for yourself' lets leaders make better decisions - another example where this has helped to develop a highly successful product
- How to mess up (and fix) a 5S implementation - 5S works well in a manufacturing environment, but what if you were a service firm? Here we look at how a company failed, but later adapted 5S to the reality of their organisation.
Toyota Thoughts
- Why Toyota still uses paper reports - looks at why paper is still dominant in the world's largest car manufacturer
Upcoming Topics:
- Implementing Kaizen within your Organization, with practical implementation plans
- Understanding the 5S, and how to adapt it for use in your service industry organization
- The original, traditional concepts of Kaizen, Horenso, PDCA and 5S that are still used in Toyota factories today.
