Toyota Product Development System Essay Example for Free

Toyota Product Development System Essay Toyota’s LPDS starts with the customer who is represented by the Chief Engineer. Toyota uses the Chief Engineer’s concept paper as a guiding tool to align thinking on the planning process. They very efficiently use the Obeya (big room) to bring together the members of divergent teams and allows them to function as a unit. The teams are structured so that all of the voices that need to be heard, from the designers to the managers of the factory, who can provide input on the impact decisions will have on the workers and the final produce, are there. One of the advantages to Toyota’s process is that it allows them to retain valuable employees. Their system of â€Å"Creating a Leveled Product Development Process Flow† means that workers will not be overworked and will be able to focus their full attention on the project at hand. When the project is finished, they are provided with new challenges to help them grow. The process of innovation is woven into the fabric of the organization. Toyota supplements its processes with a culture that is finely aligned with the process. They have also developed a number of tools to serve the process such as the already mentioned Obeya, a system of checklists which until recently were kept in three ring binders, Hansei, teardowns, A3 reports which summarize problems and help to ensure alignment. All of the processes at Toyota are highly standardized, and their culture ensures that the standardization process continues. Toyota has a corporate structure that reinforces and perpetuates itself. Sakicki Toyoda learned the loom business from the ground up, and this instilled in him a belief that to be successful, one must understand all aspects of the business. He used this knowledge to build an empire and it his conviction that one must learn by doing that still guides the thinking of Toyota employees. Power is gained through merit with all engineers working their way up â€Å"through the ranks. † Unlike other automakers who hire the best and brightest out of college and immediately give them a great deal of responsibility, Toyota takes the best and brightest (discovered through a rigorous and highly selective process) and has them go through a mentoring system where they are judged at each phase of the training. It is a socialization process that produces an employee who is trained in Toyota standards and procedures. It takes many years for a newcomer to be given a large responsibility such as a Chief Engineer. Consequently, the Chief Engineer is imbued with respect, as the entire organization knows that person has obtained the rank through perseverance, hard work, accomplishment and a deep understanding of the â€Å"Toyota Way. † Toyota is fiercely loyal to its employees, retaining them even in times of economic downturn. Even employees who are not living up to Toyota’s exacting standards are retained, however, they are given jobs with no responsibility; a great humiliation in an environment that values achievement. This has given Toyota a reputation as an excellent employer, and jobs there are highly prized. One realizes when one takes a job at Toyota that you are a highly valued part of the family, and the success of the rest of the family rests directly with you. This surely makes new employees dig into their work with great zest and humility. By studying from the ground up, the workers are able to gain insight into the whole development process. They can see how their work literally fits into the larger structure. This harmony is further reinforced by their mantra of â€Å"Customer First. † When trade-offs are presented, the overruling concern is that of the designer, as the designer is the customer. For items that are not necessarily â€Å"Customer First† issues, Toyota has developed â€Å"trade-off curves† and decision matrices to standardize decision-making. PROCESS PRINCIPLES Anyone who has spent a long time at Toyota will have absorbed the Toyota Way. † The processes of the LPDS will be firmly engrained in minds of the employees. It is difficult to separate the â€Å"lean thinking† of Toyota employees from the LDPS. They reinforce each other. The process principles of LPDS are a manifestation of the lean thinking that is a part of Toyota’s culture. By defining the customer as the starting point of the entire LPDS process, Toyota is able to align the thinking of the entire organization. It also sets the goal of eliminating waste to greater serve the needs of the customer. Other companies have tried to adopt Toyota’s processes without success. This is due to the fact that the process is only one part of Toyota’s success, the other, and in some instances, more compelling part of the success, is Toyota’s ability to create a culture indoctrinated in that process. The culture subverts ego, and turns problems into learning opportunities. Toyota has developed the most effective â€Å"knowledge job shop† in the automotive industry. It beauty lies in its ability to bring together representatives of all facets of the production process in harmony. In thinking about Goldratt’s principle of identifying and bottlenecks, you can see that Toyota has developed a process to dramatically reduce the number of bottlenecks it will face. By using standardization of parts and platforms and bringing in the right representatives to the Obeya to discuss problems before they are built into the design, Toyota is able to smooth out the potential bottlenecks before they occur. There is a great deal of alignment between all members of the team, so one is not operating in a vacuum; trying to solve problems without seeing how your solution fits into the larger product. Toyota’s focus on a leveled product development process also helps to eliminate bottlenecks by keeping the batches of work at a manageable level, eliminating variability and keeps utilization levels constant. As mentioned before, standardization is extremely important in creating a successful innovation environment. Standardization creates a common language that fosters greater communication. It even promotes communication of best practices over time as the best practices are engrained in the process by being adopted a standards. It enhances the scheduling process by allowing anticipation in the schedule, which in turn leads to great synchronization of efforts. It allows platforms, technology and subsystems to be reused in different designs saving time and money. As a result of their standardization process, Toyota is often able to eliminate the expensive prototyping phase of vehicle development. This can be done because with so many â€Å"tried and true† components being used in consistent ways, prototyping would be redundant. Standardization is one the key element to Toyotas speed in developing new vehicles. PEOPLE PRINICPLES Toyota uses a matrix system rather than a skunk works operation to develop new vehicles, Toyota’s LPDS is fully integrated into Toyota’s structure. They assemble a cross functional team that has representatives from the full range of functions involve with design, manufacturing and sales. Unlike other cross functional teams, where there is some ambiguity as to who the employee serves, Toyota is able to get an extremely high level of productivity out of them. This is due to several factors. Toyota’s culture where employees have a high level of trust for one another and deep understanding of the process thanks to the leadership to the Chief Engineer. The Chief Engineer (CE) is the head of the development project. This position is given to a senior engineer with a proven track record as an outstanding engineer and as one who is successful in using the â€Å"Toyota Way. † Management chooses CEs based on their ability to handle challenges and then tasks them with developing a vehicle that satisfies an overarching strategic direction. The CE acts as the voice of the customer who is the main focus of the LPDS. As such, the CE articulates the overall concept for the vehicle in a concept paper. This concept paper is the guiding principle that aligns the entire team working on the project. The CE is not the direct supervisor of the engineers working on the program, however, the CE does have full responsibility for the design’s success from development through sales and the concept paper ensures accountability. Unlike the â€Å"heavyweight project managers† the CE is imbued with more authority. Even without direct supervisory responsibilities, the position of CE is highly revered within the Toyota organization and commands great respect. Many within the Toyota family strive to achieve the role of CE. In fact, it is the continual striving for excellence that has helped Toyota to develop and maintain a culture of continuous learning. When an employee starts at Toyota, they undergo a long mentoring and socialization process. The socialization process that Toyota employees go through instills them with the spirit of Kaizen, which says that there is always an opportunity to learn and that learning is ongoing. This is reinforced by Toyotas practices of Hansei (reflection). Toyota builds in time and encourages its workers to step back and reflect on the work that they are doing. Toyota’s culture that embraces problems, because problems combined with Hansei can lead to Kaizen. This gives them a huge advantage over American car companies were problems are not valued and people will often cover up problems that they are having in order to maintain their status. By not embracing their problems, the problems get compounded as they are often discovered too late. TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY The best thinking to be used in choosing supporting technology is to think about it in terms the broader framework of your company’s people and processes. Toyota uses this thinking very effectively. At Toyota, technologies do not stand alone. On the contrary, their product development systems are all seamlessly integrated into their V-Comm system. This enables information to be passed quickly and efficiently to all team members. Toyota also adheres to a belief that technology should support your processes and not drive it. Consistency of process is valued at Toyota more highly than keeping up with the latest advancement. They chose technology to solve specific problems and do not look for a one size fits all solution. Finally, Toyota makes sure that the technological solutions are the right size for the problem rather than constantly going for the biggest and best. While Toyota uses this principled approach to technology, their tools that support successful innovation and organizational learning are not technology driven. Along with the V-Comm system mentioned earlier One of the first tools that is used is the CE’s concept paper. This paper is used to align the thinking of the product development team. It provides enough guidance that it allows the team to work in harmony, but at the same time, it gives the team enough flexibility that they are able to be creative. They also use a simple device called the A3 report, which distills problems and solutions down to their essence. It is really the process of reducing a problem to one sheet of paper that helps to hone the thinking and promote learning. However, the A3 also facilitates increased communication. They also use teardown analysis performed by the engineers who are working on the project and have a system of checklists that provide guidelines for product design. One of the most effective tools in Toyota’s arsenal is their constant and codified post-mortem process of Hansei. The standardization of Toyota’s processes allows the learning from this reflection to be captured and implemented. THREE CONCEPTS In looking at Toyota, one might say that they are an ambidextrous organization. Or one could say that they are successful because they have achieved a strong balance between the red and green quadrants of the Competing Values Framework. Much like Dell computers, Toyota’s culture looks very red on the surface. The strict adherence to checklists and standardization seem to indicate a company that is focused on control. But like Dell, the rigorous structures that the put in place are actually innovative (green). And in fact, the reason that Toyota and Dell are able to be successfully innovative is that they have these supporting structures in place. It is an interesting dichotomy to be at once extremely controlled and very innovative. However, by balancing these two aspects of the corporate culture, Toyota has gained great success. Toyota has also developed strategies that help it to avoid the â€Å"enemies of innovation†. First they use standardization to speed the innovation process to avoid lengthy development times. Second, by using tools like the concept paper, the Obeya, Hansei and standardization they are able to coordinate their efforts to a high degree. Third, they have come to grips with the risks that they are willing to take and have a high degree of trust throughout the organization. Finally, the CE truly understands the customer and has done much anthropological work to foster that understanding. KEY TAKE-AWAYS There were three main take-aways I gained from reading â€Å"The Toyota Product Development System: 1. Creating a culture that is aligned with your strategic goals is the greatest goal a manager could achieve. The Toyota LPDS works because it is engrained in the culture of the organization. The great reward for an engineer is to become a CE and lead a team in producing something that will best serve the needs of the customer. In order to become a CE, you have to demonstrate that you can work effectively within the systems of Toyota. This gives one a great incentive to work within the structure of Toyotas system. 2. Do not let technology drive your process, let your process drive technology. I was amazed to learn that a company with such advanced capabilities in development used checklist bound in three-ring binders to ensure that its processes were followed. It seems that most people, including myself, feel that newer and faster technology will lead to productivity breakthroughs. We are usually disappointed with the results. Toyota shows us that the problem is that technology without a solid process to back it up seldom works. If one can find technology that will improve a successful process, then it has great potential to have that breakthrough quality we expect. Toyota did this with their V-Comm system, which made the information previously stored in three-ring binders more accessible. 3. Structure leads to greater innovation It always seem counter-intuitive to me that by being more structured, one could be more creative. Having been trained as an artist, I often bristled at structure and standardization as I felt it stifled creativity. But Toyota’s LPDS made me realize that structure is the platform that allows innovation to happen. I then began to realize that within jazz music, there is a great deal of standardization. Jazz musicians spend years studying chord progressions, scales and modes and learning the songs that make up the jazz repertoire. They also spend years listening to other players and absorbing many of their ideas. This provides a foundation for musicians to communicate. Many people often ask me how it is that a group of jazz musicians who have never met before can come together for the first time and create great music together. It is because of the standardization of the repertoire that they are able to do that. The musicians know and understand the structure of a song and the â€Å"rules† for performing. This provides them with a common language to communicate their ideas to each other. In my own business, I see increasing our standardization preventing us from constantly reinventing the wheel. It is the best ways to promote and capture organization learning. The great challenge will be to change the culture, which I have created, from one that is adverse to structure to one that embraces it.

Shopping: Online vs. Store Essay -- Compare/Contrast, Comparison, Inte

When comparing two different ways of shopping most people do not even think about the difference, they do both and not even realize it. In today's society people shop while at work, after work and on the weekends, whenever time permits. Stop and think how can I get more time in the day for family or just myself? The best way to figure that out with all the recourses we have is to go into a store and spend time looking through racks and waiting in endless lines to just purchase something. I compared going into a store verses online shopping; to see which one will save you time and money. There are many reasons for choosing to go into a store to purchase items needed. For instance, having someone assist you in finding what you need, or just answer questions about the product. It is also a way to get off the couch, away from the television, or off the computer. Another feature is you can see and examine what you are going to purchase. This helps in the decision making for most people. You know the minute the salesperson rings you up, the product is yours to take home and use right aw...

A Clean Well Lighted Place †Theme and Setting Essay

A clean well lighted place by Ernest Hemingway has a few themes that stand out clearly but the one theme that stands out to me is despair. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, despair means to lose all hope or confidence. In the story, the older waiter and the old deaf man somehow share a common bond of despair. Both men are of age and like to be out, late at night, alone. Asides from the story alone, the theme of the story can be brought out by the setting. The setting contributes to the story’s theme in different ways. The setting contributes to the mood of the story, to the structure of the story, and to the lesson of the story. The cafe represents salvation for despair which is shown through the setting of the story. First, the setting contributes to the mood, from the quote â€Å"It was very late and everyone had left the cafe except an old man who sat in the shadow the leaves of the tree made against the electric light. †(107) sets a mood of a person in sadness. As a regular, at a cafe, late at night alone reveals the character’s personality with the help of the setting. The setting reveals the story’s mood because it visualizes the scene along with emotions of the story. Obviously the old man is not the type of drunk to get violent or rough because the mood seems to be calming as the setting had described â€Å"but at night the dew settled the dust and the old man liked to sit late because he was deaf and now at night it was quiet and he felt the difference. †(107) Even though the old man is deaf, the setting intensified the mood of peacefulness that the old man enjoys nice quiet drinks at a clean place. Later in the story the older waiter had no place to go for a drink so, he had gone to a bar/bodega for a drink; however, the mood of the bar/bodega compared to the cafe was not as peaceful nor comfortable. The waiter mentioned â€Å"It was the light of course but it is necessary that the place be clean and pleasant. You do not want music. Certainly you do not want music. Nor can you stand before a bar with dignity although that is all that is provided for these hours. †(109) The mood clearly shows a difference within a different setting. If the old man were to drink in that bar then the story’s mood could have been perceived in a different way. Furthermore, the setting contributes to the structure of the story, like cartilages in a human body. The cafe can be viewed as a workplace and also as a place of peaceful socialization. Each person deals with despair differently. Having the setting at a cafe where it was mentioned that it was quiet help structure the story that it is neither a depressing story nor, a happy story. The two waiters who were gossiping about the old man mentioned that he had committed suicide but, he was saved. Being in a cafe is different than rather being in a bar or anywhere else. The cafe signifies a place for space or time, depending on the person. The old man is not trying to cure his despair but rather subdue it. The setting could have taken place anywhere but it also could have affected the structure of the story differently. For example, when the older waiter was out trying to kill time due to insomnia, he went to a bar but, it was not soothing; therefore, he went home. This proves how the setting was able to support its main structure of having a cafe rather than a different place. Finally, the lesson of the story is that do not be impatient. The setting contributed to how the lesson of the story was delivered. The old deaf man was not harming anyone and the cafe was not to close ‘til two-thirty in the morning but, the young waiter wanted to close early because he wanted to go home to his wife. The setting is pleasing and comfortable for those who need a place late at night yet, it was taken away from someone who needed it. Even though the old man left quietly, it was obvious he was not done drinking. If the setting were to be elsewhere like a bar, it would mean that the old man was looking for a good time but, that was not the case. The setting contributed to the lesson like a book to a lecture. Overall, the setting contributes to the theme. The cafe represents salvation, its cleanliness and good lighting suggest peace and relaxation, whereas a bar is chaotic and loud. The older waiter describes it as a refuge from the despair felt by those who are aware of the nothingness. In a clean well-lighted cafe, despair can be managed and even temporarily forgotten. When the older waiter describes the nothingness that is life, he says, â€Å"It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order. †(109) The â€Å"it† in the sentence was not defined, but we can speculate about the waiter’s meaning: although life and man are nothing, light, cleanliness, and order can serve as substance. They can help counter off the despair from anyone. As long as a clean, well-lighted cafe exists, despair can be kept in check. This shows how the setting contributes to the theme through the mood, the structure, and the lesson of the story shaped by the setting.

Gwendolyn Brooks, the Peoples Poet

In many ways, Gwendolyn Brooks embodies the black American experience of the 20th century. Born into a family that moved to Chicago as part of the Great Migration of blacks to the north of the country, she made her way through school during the Great Depression and pursued a traditional role for herself; when she submitted poetry to magazines she usually listed her profession as housewife. In the postwar era, Brooks joined much of the black community in becoming more politically aware and active, joining the Civil Rights Movement and engaging with her community as a mentor and thought leader. Throughout her experiences, Brooks produced beautiful poetry that told the stories of ordinary black Americans in bold, innovative verse, often inspired by the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago where she lived most of her life. Fast Facts: Gwendolyn Brooks Full Name: Gwendolyn Elizabeth BrooksKnown For: American poet whose work focused on the lives of urban African AmericansLiterary Movement: 20th century poetryBorn: June 7, 1917 in Topeka, KansasDied: December 3, 2000 in Chicago, IllinoisSpouse: Henry Lowington Blakely, Jr.Children: Henry Lowington Blakely III and Nora Brooks BlakelyEducation: Wilson Junior CollegeMajor Works: A Street in Bronzeville, Annie Allen, Maud Martha, In the MeccaInteresting Fact: Brooks was the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize (in 1950 for Annie Allen) Early Years Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas in 1917. Six weeks after her birth, her family moved to Chicago. Her father worked as a custodian at a music company, and her mother taught school and was a trained musician. As a student, Brooks excelled and attended Hyde Park High School. Although Hyde Park was an integrated school, the student body was majority white, and Brooks would later recall she experienced her first brushes with racism and intolerance while attending classes there. After high school she attended a two-year degree program and took work as a secretary. She decided against pursuing a four-year degree because she knew from a young age that she wished to write, and saw no value in further formal education. Brooks wrote poetry as a child, and published her first poem when she was 13 years old (Eventide, in the magazine American Childhood). Brooks wrote prolifically and began submitting her work on a regular basis. She began to publish regularly while still attending college. These early poems attracted the attention of established writers such as Langston Hughes, who encouraged and corresponded with Brooks. 1960: Poet Gwendolyn Brooks on the back steps of her home in Chicago. Slim Aarons / Getty Images Publishing and Pulitzer By the 1940s, Brooks was well-established but still relatively obscure. She began attending poetry workshops and continued to hone her craft, work that paid off in 1944 when she published not one but two poems in Poetry magazine. This appearance in such a respected, national periodical brought her notoriety, and she was able to publish her first book of poems, A Street in Bronzeville, in 1945. The book was a huge critical success, and Brooks received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1946. She published her second book, Annie Allen, in 1949. The work was once again focused on Bronzeville, telling the story of a young black girl growing up there. It too received critical acclaim, and in 1950 Brooks was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, the first black author to win a Pulitzer Prize. Brooks continued to write and publish for the rest of her life. In 1953 she published Maud Martha, an innovative sequence of poems describing the life of a black woman in Chicago, which is regarded as one of the most challenging and complex of her works. As she became more politically engaged, her work followed suit. In 1968 she published In the Mecca, about a woman searching for her lost child, which was nominated for the National Book Award. In 1972, she published the first of two memoirs, Report From Part One, followed 23 years later by Report From Part Two, written when she was 79 years old. In the 1960s, as her fame grew, her writing began to take on a sharper edge as she observed society, exemplified by one of her most famous poems, We Real Cool, published in 1960. Teaching Brooks was a lifelong teacher, often in informal settings like her own home, where she frequently welcomed young writers and held ad hoc lectures and writing groups. In the 1960s she began teaching more formally, street gangs as well as university students. She taught a course on American Literature at the University of Chicago. Brooks was remarkably generous with her time, and spent much of her energy encouraging and guiding young writers, and eventually held teaching positions at some of the country’s best schools, including Columbia University and Northeastern Illinois University. Gwendolyn Brooks, poet, seated in the poetry room at the Library of Congress. Bettmann  /  Getty Images Personal Life Brooks married Henry Lowington Blakely, Jr. and had two children with him, remaining married until his death in 1996. Brooks is remembered as a kind and generous woman. When the Pulitzer Prize money gave her and her family financial security, she was known to use her money to help people in her neighborhood by paying rent and other bills, and funding poetry anthologies and other programs to give opportunities to young black writers. Death and Legacy Brooks died in 2000 after a brief battle with cancer; she was 83 years old. Brooks’ work was notable for its focus on ordinary people and the black community. Although Brooks mixed in classical references and forms, she almost uniformly made her subjects contemporary men and women living in her own neighborhood. Her work often incorporated the rhythms of jazz and blues music, creating a subtle beat that made her verse bounce, and which she often used to create explosive climaxes to her work, as in her famous poem We Real Cool which ends with the devastating triplet we die soon. Brooks was a pioneer of black consciousness in this country and dedicated much of her life to helping others, educating younger generations, and promoting the arts. Quotes â€Å"THE POOL PLAYERS / SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL / We real cool. We / Left school. We /Lurk late. We / Strike straight. We / Sing sin. We / Thin gin. We / Jazz June. We / Die soon.† (We Real Cool, 1960) â€Å"Writing is a delicious agony.† â€Å"Poetry is life distilled.† â€Å"Believe me, I loved you all. Believe me, I knew you, though faintly, and I loved, I loved you All.† (The Mother, 1944) â€Å"Reading is important—read between the lines. Don’t swallow everything.† â€Å"When you use the term minority or minorities in reference to people, you’re telling them that they’re less than somebody else.† Sources â€Å"Gwendolyn Brooks.† Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 15 Aug. 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwendolyn_Brooks.Bates, Karen Grigsby. â€Å"Remembering The Great Poet Gwendolyn Brooks At 100.† NPR, NPR, 29 May 2017, https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/05/29/530081834/remembering-the-great-poet-gwendolyn-brooks-at-100.Fà ©lix, Doreen St. â€Å"Chicagos Particular Cultural Scene and the Radical Legacy of Gwendolyn Brooks.† The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 4 Mar. 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/chicagos-particular-cultural-scene-and-the-radical-legacy-of-gwendolyn-brooks.Watkins, Mel. â€Å"Gwendolyn Brooks, Whose Poetry Told of Being Black in America, Dies at 83.† The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 Dec. 2000, https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/04/books/gwendolyn-brooks-whose-poetry-told-of-being-black-in-america-dies-at-83.html.