In 1977, Jimmy Carter was president of the USA, Fleetwood Mac released Rumours, and Star Wars hit the screens. But a new edition of the prestigious International Journal of Production Research celebrates a significant but little-known 30th anniversary: the first detailed description in English of one of the most significant industrial innovations of the 20th century: The Toyota Production System (TPS).
Otherwise known as “Lean Production” and “Just-in-Time”, TPS has moved beyond the auto industry to become widely accepted as the most productive way of manufacturing systems. And it is now widely applied elsewhere, including administrative back office systems, in healthcare, in the public sector, in banks and defense.
The 1977 paper – with the ungainly title: “Toyota Production System and Kanban System: Materialization of Just-in-Time and Respect-for-Human System” – was a description by four Toyota managers of the system which their organization (and the inspirational genius, Taiichi Ohno) had developed in order to compete with the western auto giants. With none of the financial resources or economies of scale available to Ford and General Motors, Toyota developed a low-inventory, right-first-time approach in which material was pulled through the manufacturing process without waste and without the need for complex computer systems. Moreover, the workers in the system were fully engaged in improving the system and stopping errors, each given the authority to stop the line at the first sign of trouble.
TPS took years to refine, but the outcome was a world-beating system which has left Toyota the undisputed champion of the world auto industry, while its U.S. rivals face an uncertain future. Although many in other firms have sought to emulate TPS, Toyota has managed to keep well ahead, constantly developing and extending its methods.
The idea for a special Issue of the journal that commemorated the original paper – the first in stream of many hundreds of books and articles on the approach – came to Dr. Steve New of the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford while supervising a student project.
“I was working with a student who was implementing TPS ideas in a factory in Costa Rica,” he said. “I’d read the original paper many years earlier, and my student reminded me of its existence. Re-reading it, I thought it remarkable that so much of what we have spent 30 years unpicking was explained so succinctly. And it suddenly dawned on me that this obscure academic paper deserved a celebration. After all, TPS is one of the most extraordinary human inventions of the century.”
New also noted that one of the four authors of the original paper was one Fujio Cho, then a relatively junior employee, who has subsequently risen to be chairman of Toyota.
New set to work in contacting several hundred researchers from all continents active in exploring TPS. He eventually solicited 50 or so original contributions from leading researchers, which an exhaustive refereeing process reduced to the 11 papers (plus New’s introduction) which make up the special Issue.
“Research on TPS takes many forms, and I wanted to capture the breadth of the field,” he said. “So, some of the papers are very applied. For example, one paper examines how the Korean firm Hyundai has sought to adapt Toyota’s approach, and another looks at how it is applied in the ceramics industry. Other papers are very mathematical, seeking to unravel some of the deep structure of the ideas that underpin TPS. I have no doubt that in 30 years time we’ll still be exploring and adapting this extraordinary gift that Toyota have given the world.”
In order to promote the special Issue, the Journal’s publisher, Taylor & Francis, has made both Dr. New’s introductory article and the original 1977 paper freely available on the IJPR Web site:
“Celebrating the Enigma: The Continuing Puzzle of the Toyota Production System” – S.J. New
IJPR 45:16, 2007,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207540701223386
“Toyota Production System and Kanban System: Materialization of Just-in-Time and Respect-for-Human System – Y. Sugimori, K. Kusunoki, F. Cho, S. Uchikawa
IJPR 15:6, 1977,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00207547708943149