Question

what does the toyota production system have to do with JIT and lean production?

Answer 1

There is great relationship between the lean/JIT production system and the Toyota production sysyem. Many methods that are common to lean operations were developed as part of Toyota production system. The relationship is more visible while comparing the terms used in these systems like jidoka, kanban and kaizen which are used to minimize the waste and inefficiency in production systems. In Toyota production system waste and inefficiency is termed as muda and it is the key concept of lean systems. The Just in Time or JIT approach was developed by Toyota after studying the Ford’s production system. Just in time refers to making right amount of inventory available at the right time. Now many companies follow the JIT system for inventory management. Toyota uses the Kanban system to implement JIT and it refers to the cards used to control the production through a factory. Kaizen is a Japanese word that means continuous improvement and lean systems always look for improvement. Producing goods according to customer expectations is an important characteristic of lean system. The basic idea in lean system is to build quality into the production process and the way to achieve this is ensuring quality at the source. The approach used in Toyota Production System known as jidoka is used to prevent quality problems from occurring and hence ensure quality at source. Lean systems also focus on workload leveling to achieve uniformity and Toyota production system uses the japanese term heijunka for the same.