In other companies an employee has an idea and they send it through committee, and then six months later it might get applied on the line.
Not at Toyota.
They’re all focused on the same thing.
As soon as an employee gets a new idea about improving a process, they take it to “the constant, never-ending improvement department" in the center of the plant. The employee says, “If I had a wrench that was shaped like this, I could get a little bit more leverage. I could save 2/10 of a second on every bolt I tighten. That would be really cool."
The improvement department has no other job other than to actually manufacture and create what employees are proposing. So that new wrench will be helping move the line tomorrow.
Notice what this does to the organization.
Now the Toyota plants in the U.S. are getting thousands of suggestions from employees. Why? Because thousands of suggestions have already been implemented, and people have become focused on improvement.
They want to top themselves.
The thing that is so powerful is not simply that they are getting lots of suggestions, because many organizations get lots of suggestions. The thing that is so powerful about Toyota is that every suggestion relates to the company’s focus.
It gives self-esteem to the individual, who says, “My idea just got accepted! I can go home and tell my family I did something important this day, this year, this lifetime," and they are going to want to do more.
That is called working on WOW.
It’s working on making the best automobiles on the planet so when the vehicles come off the assembly line, every employee knows that the WOW result is something they contributed to.
Toyota is the most profitable company in Japan and has been for years.
On this level, what we have to do is look at the 80/20 rule and rethink what it is. Is it really 80/20? Or is it 1/99?
What is the one vital thing that will maximize your results if you get it done with quality, consistency and speed?
