Zenjidoka, Solving Toyota's Quality Problems

A simple tool for a complex problem

I have long admired and respected Toyota. I have been to its factories, published and written books and articles about its revolutionary production system, known many of its brilliant people, and taught its methods to thousands of students. Like many of Toyota's admirers, I was shocked and saddened by the company's disastrous unintended acceleration problems and their tragic results. My students and friends have continued to ask me, "How could Toyota have let this happen?" Where did the world's quality leader go wrong and how can Toyota and you ensure that problems like this will not manifest into millions of recalls and billions of dollars of losses?

After studying the recent problems at Toyota, I have reached this conclusion: Had the tools of the Toyota Production System been extended from the factory floor worker to every employee who makes contact with the customer, Toyota could have dramatically reduced the resulting financial impact and human tragedy. This article is the first in a series to address this idea in some detail.

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When will Zenjidoka be implmented?

Hello Mr. Bodek:

When do you think Zenjidoka will be implemented? I have studied the Toyotoa Production System, Deming, etc. for a number of years. I beleive so much in TPS that I now buy Toyota vehicles.

I have a 2005 Toyota Tacoma. I have had to purchase 5 additional mud flaps for my truck becasue they keep ripping off of the vehicle. They are over $100 each after installation.

I have seen many, many Tacomas with 3 or fewer mud flaps. I raised this issue with my Toyota dealer. They wouldn't do anything about the issue. They connected me to a 1-800 number. The person on the other end of the phone first asked if my truck was under warranty. I said that is was not but I beleive Toyota has a design flaw. The person said that my vehicle had to be under warranty, or there had to be an alert in order for Toyota to do anything. Again I explained my reasoning as to why the issue is a design problem. Nothing ever happened. My suiggestion went nowhere.

The local guys at the dealer agreed that it looked like a design problem but they too said there was nothing they could do. We looked at the various mud flaps on the Toyota trucks in their lot. Nothing happened in terms of Toyota doing anything about what I perceived to be a problem.

"When an employee hears directly or indirectly about a customer problem
or potential problem, that employee must stop, listen with sincerity,
and take action immediately." I wish!

The following is NOT part of US Toyota dealer'sculture:

With Zenjidoka, the first time a problem is reported by the
first customer to the Toyota dealer, service technician, customer
service representative, or salesperson, that employee would stop working
and immediately try to get to the root cause of the problem. Applying Jidoka
to outside the factory, every time a customer reports a problem, the
Toyota employee would determine if this is a new type of problem or one
that has repeatedly happened before. If it is a new type of problem then
the Toyota employee would stop working, if possible even pull a cord,
and call over a supervisor to help examine and make sure the problem is
resolved before it turns out to be a disaster.

If a new type of
problem was detected by a Toyota dealership, in addition to solving the
problem, Toyota headquarters in both the United States and Japan would
receive details about what the customer said, what the reaction of the
repairperson was, and how the problem was solved. Jidoka becomes Zenjidoka."

Thank you,

Dirk van Putten

Go and See is Easier than Ever

As the author of the QI Macros Lean Six Sigma Software for Excel, I mistake-proof everything I can think of, but with dozens of versions and service packs running on PCs and Macs with various operating systems, it's impossible to think of everything.

I used to try to handle customer issues over the phone, but with existing internet technology, it's easy to "go and see".

Recently, I was on vacation, far from the office, when a customer had a problem with Excel 2011 for the Macintosh.

I gave them a call and started GoToMeeting on my laptop. GoToMeeting allows me to see their screen and what they were doing. It quickly became evident that there was a bug in Excel 2011. I was able to show them how to avoid the problem and get them back in production. For only $49/month I can "go and see" in my customer's office anywhere in the world. I've used it to find and fix Excel issues on PCs and Macs all over the globe.

Data transmission doubles in speed and falls in cost by 50% every nine months!

With webcams, camcorder cell phones and data plans, it should be easy to "go and see" a product operate (and/or fail) anywhere in the world.

Zenjidoka is easier than we might think and getting more affordable every day.

A holistic approach

Norm, this seems so obvious a strategy, I find myself a bit baffled why Zenjidoka has yet to be realized. Perhaps its brilliance is in its simplicity? I can just imagine the "not invented here" naysayers claiming that it won't work outside the factory, that there is no "cord." But isn't "the cord" just a metaphor for whatever methods are installed to allow each employee to simply put a stop to the work process, and the stoppage is widely broadcast? For example, could we imagine an environment where the sales process is literally suspended pending a resolution of a design problem reported by a customer? Imagine the pressure to find root causes!

Jeff