A follow-up on Toyota.
Jim Grisanzio, a project manager at Sun, posted a nice follow-up to the item I wrote last week comparing Ford to Toyota.
Small Improvements Leading to Big Results
Since Jim works on open-source technology — and works in Japan — he has an interesting perspective on the Toyota method of kaizen. As we discussed the other day, Toyota prizes small changes that compound incrementally, rather than “Big Bang” changes that try to revolutionize things all at once.
But Jim cites two more big advantages to the kaizen method:
- It’s open-source: everybody can contribute, within a framework.
- It works within constraints, and indeed was born of necessity during very hard times for Japanese industry.
In today’s tough economic times, many companies are looking for magic fixes to their problems. My sense is that the combination of those three algorithms — incrementalism, open-source collaboration, working within constraints — is the prescription to cure many ills.
Do yourself a favor and check out Jim’s post and its comments, as well as the other articles linked below.
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Related reading:
- Jim Grisanzio: Toyota’s (Open)TPS
- Jim Grisanzio: A way of Thinking
- Dan Markovitz: Kaizen vs. Kaikaku
- James Surowiecki in The New Yorker: The Open Secret of Success
- Charles Fishman in Fast Company: No Satisfaction at Toyota
- Succeeding under constraints.
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4 Comments so far
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hey, thanks for those links. :) I`m busy reading! I`m really interested in this issue because I find it so personally empowering. I`m also discovering the value of adversity and scarcity along the way. The Japanese can teach some clear lessons along these lines, and I bet open minded Americans will be more than happy to learn. The US needs GM and Ford, and there is no reason why the situation can not be turned around. The blueprint is well-known and open, after all, eh?
Good thoughts, Jim. I’m glad we found each other’s blogs, because I’m sure there’s much more goodness to uncover here. For now, I’m set to read “From 0 to 60 to World Domination.”
The trick, I think, is to move people first to the acknowledgement that the blueprint (or A blueprint, anyway) is known and freely available, and then move them to act on that knowledge. I predict it won’t happen overnight — but that’s what careers are for, right? :)
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