The Status Quo Degrades

By Kevin Meyer

Stewart Anderson penned an article in the latest Quality Digest that took a look at several misconceptions about Toyota.  I won't go into all of them, but one in particular did stick out:

Misconception #4: Toyota processes are fully standardized and never degrade.

Standard work is a key component of lean manufacturing, so what does that mean?

While Toyota does believe in and practice creating standardized processes, they also realize that even a standardized process will degrade over time. This happens for a variety of reasons—people forget to follow standardized work, standard operating conditions deteriorate over time, etc.

So if that's the case, then how do you control it?

Thus, Toyota takes the view that if a process is not improving, then it is degrading; there is no in-between state that can be indefinitely maintained, even with standardization in place. Because all processes will degrade, Toyota always insists on moving toward the next target condition once a previously-set target condition has been achieved and the new condition stabilized.

Toyota managers will always restandardize a process after every improvement, but they will not be content to rest there, since they know the new condition will deteriorate unless daily improvements are made.

If it's not improving, it's degrading.  Period.

Sort of makes you wonder about those factories that became "lights out" operations filled with robots.  Since robots can't really dream up improvements, what will happen?

Comments

[mike]

Nothing. If a robot cant improve how can it degrade?

[Kevin]

If the bar is being raised because your competitors are improving, then you're degrading. If maintenance is becoming more and more frequent as equipment ages, causing more and more line downs and manual intervention, you're degrading. Degrading can either be from a singular mindset of looking at yourself, or a more global perspective of looking at your market and competitors.

[Anon]

Quality Digest had to add a disclaimer crediting Mike Rother's "Toyota Kata" book -- I think because the whole "if you're not improving, you're degrading" is pretty liberally cribbed from that book. I recommend people read that instead of this guy you've cited.

[Jeff]

What would happen with lights-out factories? It depends on the people in the organization rather than how the factory floor is automated. As Mike Rother describes in "Toyota KATA", sustainable competitive advantage is derived from the level of improvement capability and creativity of the people in the organization. The means by which people in a company are managed to develop and channel their ingenuity is, in the long run, more important for improvement than the solutions themselves, whether automation, lean tools or anything like that.