Toyota Production System “Waste reduction”

Lean Reduction is one of the (or more) popular and successful manufacturing management systems in the world. This system began to be applied by the Japanese company Toyota (the well-known car company) in the seventies (about 40 years ago) and showed impressive results. In the 1980s, American and European companies began to be surprised by the superiority of Japanese companies over them as a result of applying this system. Therefore, they began trying to understand this policy and try to implement it. Until now, this policy is still superior to any other policy for manufacturing management and even service management as well. Toyota is still the ideal model for managing production operations in the world, and its success continues. In this article, I try to present a loss reduction policy so that we can understand and apply it.

What is it?

The policy of reducing losses aims to reduce losses in all production processes. This policy is characterized by helping us to get rid of many losses, which we usually consider as inevitable. Transport. The policy of reducing waste enables us to reduce these losses dramatically and make the production process very efficient. This policy (system) is called by several names in English

Just In time, i.e. just-in-time production and just-in-time inventory replenishment, is one of the most popular nomenclature, abbreviated to JIT

Lean Production, that is, lean production, that is, not loaded with excess stock, excess labor, or other losses.

Lean Manufacturing, i.e. lean manufacturing

Toyota System or Toyota Production System Any Toyota System or Toyota Production System in relation to the origin of this policy in the Toyota Corporation. Abbreviated to TPS.

But all these names mean the same policy and aim for a clear goal, which is to reduce (remove) waste Elimination. It seems to me that this is the common name in Arabic and it is better than others because it explains the truth of this policy. Rather, the name Just in Time makes many think that this policy means – only – that there is no stock at all, and this is a big mistake. This policy not only aims to reduce inventory, but also aims to reduce waste, including the stock that can be dispensed with. It also does not make the inventory zero, but it makes the inventory very little compared to companies that do not apply this policy.

You may find that some treat JIT as part of TPS and these in turn as part of Lean Manufacturing. This is something that does not concern us much in our discussion of the policy of reducing waste, as we want to know all the details of this policy, whether it is called TPS, JIT, or Lean.

Waste reduction policy is a system consisting of several systems (elements) all aimed at reducing waste. These systems interact with each other to give us the successful impact of the loss reduction policy. Waste Reduction Policy, or JIT, is not just a method of inventory management or production planning, but rather a culture, philosophy, and set of systems that support each other.

ship loss reduction

The policy of reducing waste was not applied and developed at a specific moment, but was developed in Japan after World War II in about twenty years, and its roots go back to before World War II. During the development of this policy, the need for these different systems to complement each other emerged. For example, you cannot reduce inventory without reducing the percentage of defective products, and you cannot implement a production withdrawal policy without reducing equipment adjustment time and equipment malfunctions.

Some people think that the policy of reducing waste or JIT aims to reduce inventory just because inventory represents an uninvested financial value and even costs us a storage cost. It’s much deeper than that. The policy of reducing waste looks at the stock as a main reason for the existence of many losses. The large stock makes us overlook (or do not see) many problems, while the lack of stock makes us keen to solve these problems and thus get rid of the losses. There is a very famous example that illustrates this idea

Imagine when a ship is running down a stream with lots of obstacles like big boulders. Can this ship go through this stream? Yes, if these obstacles and rocks are at the bottom so that they do not reach the ship, that is, the ship can proceed safely if the water is deep enough so that these rocks and obstacles at the bottom are not visible and do not affect the course of the ship. Are rocks present? Yes. do we see it no. Shall we try to remove it? Of course not, we don’t even see it.

This is the horseshoe. Water covers rocks and obstacles and makes us not see them, just as the large stock makes production sail in peace with the presence of many and large losses (rocks), but we do not see them, as the stock covers them and makes us not feel their presence as water covers rocks. When we have a huge inventory between the stages of production, we do not care when a stage of production stops because the rest of the stages will continue to work during the repair of the stopped stage. Therefore, our sense of the existence of the problem is weak, as we have “covered the problem with large stocks.” We did not feel the problem, nor did we try to study it and prevent it. repeated.

Also, when you have a large inventory of finished products and semi-finished materials, quality problems are very acceptable, such as sunrise and sunset…. Defective products that are discarded or remanufactured… are normal. The large inventory made us indifferent to the cost of defective products and did not look for a way to prevent these errors. What happens in any production or service place when a problem occurs that causes production to stop completely? The entire organization is moving to solve the problem, to examine its causes, and to take measures to prevent its recurrence. Large stocks cause many problems and losses that do not lead to a complete halt to production, i.e. they represent a cover for these problems and losses. Do we want to cover up the problems or do we want to remove them?

So what do we do? Are we removing water from the watercourse

Mama, let’s make the rocks stop the ship? So the ship will be broken and we will never get out of these rocks. What if we reduce the water level a bit so that we can see some parts of the rocks and get rid of them? Then we reduce the water level more to see other parts of the rocks and get rid of them, and so on until we get rid of all the rocks and we can sail with a small level of water. This is the journey of the policy of reducing waste. We will gradually reduce the level of inventory at all stages, starting from raw materials, passing through semi-finished products, and ending with finished products, and we will try to see and eliminate problems and losses. Then we reduce the inventory further and see, solve and eliminate other problems and losses. After that, we reduce the stock more, and so on, until we reach the lowest level of stock, and we have got rid of all the losses, and any small problem becomes clear and is disposed of immediately.

Note that some obstacles in the waterway may be plants that have roots under the waterway. When you get rid of the plant, the root remains underground, and the plant grows again. So we have to get rid of these plants by their “roots,” that is, uproot them. Also, in our journey in the ship of reducing losses, we will get rid of these losses and problems from their roots. We are not looking for superficial studies and solutions that allow problems to recur….we will not live with the losses…we will uproot them from their roots.

Many obstructions in the course of water may be known to all that ships pass around them. Everyone accepts these obstacles as part of life, except for the waste reduction ship. We will not go around the hurdle because it is a natural hurdle and we will not accept bottlenecks and long waiting times as a result of this hurdle. We will get rid of “all” the rocks so that the stream will be unobstructed. The policy of reducing waste does not accept the losses that everyone is accustomed to accepting, such as the large time that we consume to start production or to change from one product to another, and the large times that are wasted in transporting the product from one place to another and the long waiting times from one production stage to another. Waste reduction policy means eliminating all waste.

So a loss reduction ship needs systems to get rid of these rocks and vegetation and obstructions. Can the captain and his assistants do that? Do the captain and his assistants see all the obstacles? Do they see its roots? Does the captain understand how to uproot all these plants? Perhaps he understands well how to steer a ship, but he does not know the rocks and how to move them, nor the plants and how to uproot them. Therefore, the efforts of the captain and his assistants must be combined with the sailors of simple labor who will see the rocks and be able to move them and be able to uproot the plants from their roots. All administrative levels cooperate to solve problems, including the lowest administrative levels of operators and mechanics. All departments cooperate, operators, maintenance officials, supply chain officials and sales officials must cooperate to solve problems.

Also, not every sailor can be assigned to remove any rock alone, but all sailors must cooperate when removing any rock. Waste reduction policy depends on very high team spirit. Rather, the operator responsible for one production stage will cooperate to solve any problem in any other production stage in which it occurs. If the ship collapsed in part of it, all the sailors would go to repair this part, otherwise they would all drown. Also, when applying the policy of reducing waste, stopping a production stage threatens to stop all stages because the stock of semi-finished products between production stages is a very limited stock that will run out quickly.

But what if these rocks were disposed of and then the residents around the watercourse dumped waste into it? Therefore, the ship must cooperate with those responsible for the waterway and the residents around it to prevent the accumulation of debris and rocks. The policy of reducing waste is based on cooperation between the corporation and its suppliers in a very distinguished manner. Suppliers meet the organization’s requests for raw materials and production requirements very quickly, so that the organization does not need to keep a large stock of these materials. And suppliers cooperate with the institution in solving manufacturing problems by supplying more suitable and higher quality materials. And the matter does not stop at that, but the suppliers participate with the institution in developing its products. The Corporation also assists suppliers in developing themselves and requires them to have good work systems in order to ensure continuous access to high levels of quality.

In the end, the water will run fast and the waste reduction ship will run smoothly without hindrance. The policy of reducing waste aims for production to proceed as smoothly as the flow of water in this clean stream, and for materials to sail from one production stage to another, as this ship sails non-stop. A loss-reducing ship will become fast, able to meet passengers’ needs quickly, and able to run its course quickly. The policy of reducing waste will make us able to meet the needs of customers quickly. We will not force them to buy our stock, but we will produce what they need quickly.