"Toyota's Other System—This One for Product Development"
Automotive Design & Production
February 2006, pp. 18-22
The author of this article states "Despite its obscurity, there are those who would argue that the Toyota Product Development System is more important to Toyota's success (and therefore a more essential element of the lean philosophy) than its manufacturing system. In fact, at its deepest level, it can be argued that Toyota's lean manufacturing system is more an extension of their product development philosophy than vice versa."
The following key features of the Toyota Product Development System are discussed:
- Functional managers as teachers—Managers are the most technically competent engineers and their role is largely to teach others;
- A clear emphasis on, and reward for, technical competence—Authority derives from knowledge, and people move up the hierarchy because of their technical expertise;
- "Pull" scheduling of distributive planning and control—The chief engineer establishes a set of key integrating events, with specific target dates that are never missed;
- Set-based concurrent engineering—Instead of top-down design, the system configuration emerges from creative combinations of multiple solution sets;
- Knowledge capture and re-use—The knowledge management system stores solution sets in ways that are easily accessible by all engineering team members;
- Standardization around checklists and design standards—"Quality matrices…are developed for each part, showing the detailed steps in the manufacturing process, and all of the quality and productivity issues that can be affected by that step";
- Visual management of the development process—Color-coded graphics track where a project stands and whether it is meeting its goals.
Back to top of page
