Toyonoki has been busy with 20 Keys for 32 years, and already received the Bronze Award, many years ago. Since then they added facilities and maintained the Bronze Award level. Market demand is outstripping capacity for agricultural harvesters, soilers and sprayers, and they recently built another plant, on the same site, and are also planning a new one. They have 9 sites in Hokkaido (province), all implementing 20 Keys.
Energy levels and the work rate (doing value adding work) were observed to be high during the time spent on the shop floor by the tour group. For 2017 the number of suggestions for improvement implemented totaled 8700 and each team implemented 6 improvement themes (projects and larger scale suggestions) for improvement. Monthly awards are given for suggestions (with the highest amount given about R500).
The manufacturing approach is small batches, with a high variety of products and the factory is laid out in manufacturing cells, organised by product cells. 50% of product is made to order and 50% to stock. Development lead-time for new products of 3 years may sound long, but product is thoroughly tested over seasons as it often operates in harsh conditions. With quality they set themselves a target of reducing quality issues by 50% each year. The final inspection of products is the actual usage, under simulated conditions, very close to what is experienced in the real usage environment.
Some learning points:
- Involvement of all employees and management, with visible commitment from management
- High levels of energy amongst employees
- With the 20 Keys implementation, they “rigorously follow the steps”
- With each multi-level meeting they all express their commitment to continuous improvement. Multi-level meetings are typically held twice a year, coinciding with the financial year-end and mid year, In Toyonoki’s case all people attend these meetings
- Visual control of processes, lots of visual performance management and other information on the floor
- Tools stored at point of use
- Organisation of the visit and attendance and participation by senior management evidence of how serious the 20 Keys system seen in the company
- Small batch manufacturing requires quick product changeover times; a demonstration was given to the tour group on one such a changeover. Clever changes to tooling, handling methods and preparation for a changeover often make a big difference, as was demonstrated to us during the visit
- Production pressures, productivity improvement efforts and training are “balanced”
- Training is done on the job, also with 20 Keys
- Excellent production planning as well as demand planning and a high level of flexibility to adjust quickly to seasonal demands
- Standard Operation Procedures (SOPs) are available at all working stations, and also standards of what “good looks like”
- Quality control at source by all operators.
There was an interesting story from one of the Executive Directors, Mr. Ohhasi – he was a junior person in the company when they started 20 Keys, at that time introduced by Professor Kobayashi who told him that if he does 20 Keys really well he will get a promotion; today he is an Executive Director. Mr Ohhashi concluded by saying that “thanks to the 20 Keys, we have overcome our earlier problems, without 20 Keys the company would not have been in business anymore”
Toyonoki’s 20 Keys implementation is a classic implementation of 20 Keys, giving sustainable results over a period of 32 years. Classic in the sense the methodology is “followed rigorously” and it serves as a reminder that the 20 Keys system is actually a well proven “SOP”, if you follow it you will get results!
To read more about ODI’s Continuous Operations Improvement System, click here.
Author: Johan Benadie: Director at ODI
