Toyota Methods and Operating Models
by Stefano Cortiglioni, Leonardo Salcerini, Danilo Verga, Andrea Petretti
Visual management
During a visit to our plant by Toyota’s top management, I was about to explain how the production activities were structured when my guest stopped me: ‘A factory is a Toyota factory if a visitor can understand it without anyone having to explain it.’
This quote encloses many concepts that we have previously treated: the flow of materials, clearly visible production lines, specific areas allocated for each activity, and most of all the visual management approach, which in Japanese is called Mieruka.1
A fundamental concept of TPS is that all the activities, the KPIs and the projects cannot be just a mere working tool for management, but they must be visible to anyone. Its potential can be exploited not only by using all the ...
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