This article: Toyota Kata within BMW
Source: Business-improvement.eu
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Lean: Value adding organization |
![]() By Dr Jaap van Ede, editor-in-chief Business-improvement.eu, 05-06-2018. The Toyota Kata approach, with mentors and mentees applying coaching and improving behavior routines respectively, continuously increases the problem solving abilities of the mentees. This supports the Lean goal of all people helping to improve every day. The Toyota Kata principles were integrated in the Value-added Production System (VPS) of the German car manufacturer BMW. ‘It was one of the sources of inspiration for us’, says Markus Grüneisl, head operational excellence and digitalization. ‘However, we did not copy the system as described in Mike Rothers book, but developed our own version of the Kata behavior routines.’ Other important components of the VPS are Hoshin Kanri and einfachautomatiserung. Industrie 4.0 is also useful, if it serves Lean. ‘We don’t want to lose the power of the takt.’ This article is available in Dutch on www.procesverbeteren.nl
BMW’s process improvement system is called Value-added Production System (VPS), or in German language: Wertschöpfungsorientiertes Produktionssystem (WPS). ‘Involving all the employees in process improvement is a very important element of this VPS’, says Markus Grüneisl, Head of Production System, Digitalization & Operational Excellence at BMW Group. ‘To accomplish Lean production, everybody should help to improve every day. We call this the subsidiary system. Operators for example contribute with specific knowledge about their work.’ Problem solving skills ![]()
Toyota Kata Striving towards a distant business goal resembles climbing a mountain in darkness with only a small flashlight. Then you can only see a small part of the route to be covered. Planning and executing big improvement steps then makes little sense. It is better to take many small but quick improvement steps, during which you climb and the next part of the route becomes increasingly clear. ![]() A Kata is a behavioral routine which helps you to deal with unpredictable obstacles, lying on the route to an increasingly better process. (© Mike Rother)
According to Rother these two behavior routines determine how people within Toyota strive iteratively towards Target Conditions. This brings this company step-by-step closer to a Vision, along a route that is a priori unclear and full of hidden obstacles. Toyota turns out to be an organization in which everyone is a problem-solver, displaying ‘improvement kata behavior’, guided by a coach, displaying ‘coaching kata behavior’. The Improvement Kata is a set of behavior guidelines which are learned by doing. To this end you are coached by a more experienced person, a mentor or a sensei. Teaching how to improve is done via a mentor/mentee dialogue, which Rother calls the Coaching Kata. A mentor guides his or her mentee through the Improvement Kata. The teaching process has the aim to keep a mentee within the corridor of the Improvement Kata, by asking Socratic type of questions.> more about Toyota Kata
![]() Lean production at BMW in München in One Piece Flow. Different car variants alternate each other.
This makes the production planning complex. A Lean production line consists of stations in which people or teams work during one ‘takt’ or cycle time on one product, which is then transferred to the next work station. ‘So, when for example the takt time is 60 seconds, people within a work station always have to finish their task within about 55 to 60 seconds. When every car is a bit different, this is not easy’, says Grüneisl. ‘Our operators help to make this possible, for example with suggestions to distribute the assembly tasks better over the work stations. Besides this we apply leveling. This means that cars which are difficult to build are alternated with simpler car types in the production stream. Third, when workstations become overloaded with work, people from other workstations, for example from pre-assembly, can step in. With these kind of solutions we are already able to make electric cars and petrol cars on one assembly line.’ ![]()
Grüneisl is not impressed. ‘If you do that, you lose the power of the takt time. The takt determines which components are needed where and when.’ ![]() Industrie 4.0 at BMW: Support for production tasks by way of augmented reality glasses
Grüneisl: ‘Digitally collecting data form the factory floor can also make predictive maintenance possible. In addition, we collect data with the purpose to save energy. In the long term, we strive for a carbon-neutral energy supply to our production networks.’ Some scientists predict factories producing and improving by themselves in the (far) future, based on smart techniques such as artificial intelligence and big data. Grüneisl knows those stories, but stays with both feet on the ground. ‘For now, there still is much more to be gained with traditional value stream mapping, and by involving all people to strive for the leanest process possible.’
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