3 July 2014

TPS or Lean Thinking: “do more doing less” – part 1

I immediately state that it is NOT a beer. It stands for Toyota Production System, a modus operandi born in Japan in the sixties.

COMAC, Japan, TPS, Lean Thinking… what is the relationship with one another, someone  would ask? COMAC has not gone to Japan only to present and sell its machines, but also to see and study the TPS directly on site.

At the beginning of 2014, in fact, Stefano and Bruno went to Japan to visit some companies in which the TPS is successfully applied. But what is the TPS?

I could summarize the concept of Taiichi Ohno, creator of such thinking, in a nutshell: to be able to use the available resources in a productive way to significantly increase the overall yield of the Company.

This is the primary objective, which is reached in several steps, the most important of which is the consideration of the people who work for the company in terms of esteem and respect: the figure of the worker, but also that of the employee, is completely revised. The employee should no longer be a mere performer, but a true actor who could intervene on the production process, changing also the procedure aiming to a continuous improvement.

The team work makes the difference, because the cooperation has to be effective at all levels.

TPS - Lean Thinking

The strengths of this system are:

  • maximum reliance between the management and employees
  • focusing on Total Quality, which must be an absolute must and a goal to be always pursued
  • Constant stress to improvement
  • immediate responses to market demands
  • reduction in inventories and almost total annihilation of the warehouse
  • just in time production: it has to be produced what the customer requires on precise and determined timing.

TPS - Lean Thinking

The TPS is the basis of modern Lean Thinking concept whose axiom is: to eliminate everything is superfluous to generate value and not unnecessary costs.

Having the quality as the first objective, is the axiom number 2.

COMAC applies the Lean Thinking program because COMAC wants to give his Customers the BEST QUALITY ever.

And have you ever heard of TPS? Please send us your comments, we are happy to deal with you.