In yesterday's HERALD there was this unusual report in the business section. "Toyota sets up Technical Training Institute" (caps added). It was about the setting up of TTTI in affilitation with Toyota Kirloskar Motors (TKM) in Bangalore to train 60 students (per batch); who "have the talent but cannot go for higher education due to economic reasons"; in "skilled manufacturing" in a 3 year residential program. The course "would involve practical training at TKM plant" and exposure to the application of "the Toyota Production System" (TPS).
TPS is the bedrock of modern manufacturing of complex, technology based products like cars, TVs, computers, brown goods, etc. It originated in the early 1950s and was inspired by the American super market model wherein shelves are re-stocked as soon as the goods on them are emptied by customers. In the case of Toyota the shelf is the assembly line and the goods are the parts used in making a vehicle. If there is a stock out at any point the whole line comes to a grinding halt. So parts have to keep coming in "just-in-time". To start with however just-in-time means being well in time. It cannot be done over-night. The supply chain has to be fine tuned over the long haul to work with clock work precision. The key is to have zero inventories or buffers. For this the set-up time of machines along the chain have to be reduced to spew out one piece at a time rather than whole batches. To reduce set-ups you have to practice them and do as much of them offline as possible. There are a host of features of TPS which we cannot go into here, like the kanban cards, the andon light signals, the total quality circles, even the morning assemblies and company songs. My knowledge of TPS is also rusty as I introduced the idea about 20 years ago to an Indian audience in a short article based on exposure to a couple of local Japanese manufacturing operations. But it is fair to say that TPS is a customer based manufacturing perspective, it relies heavily on human resources, it makes extensive use of technology and it assiduously tries to keep costs down. I didnt realise that the Indian industrial environment was not very conducive to it even though other countries in the region, first in East and South East Asia, then China took to it like ducks to water. But in the west, Indians, including professors have been on the forefront in "re-industrialising" America, Britain etc. To cut this rambling post short, let me wish TTTI great success. One day one of its pass-outs will head TKM and, who knows, maybe even the parent company!
