Arslan Ahmed

Discuss how Jidoka contributes to Kaizen in the Toyota Production system. Toyota Production system can be compared to a house which has as its pillars the principles of Jidoka and Just-in-time and as the floor the principles of Kaizen and Heijunka. Taiichi Ohno is credited with developing the Toyota Production System (TPS) in the mid 1940s. The owner, Sakichi Toyoda wanted to achieve the same level of expertise as that of the American carmakers and tasked Ohno with finding a solution. Ohno used certain elements of the Toyoda’s earlier loom works business as inspiration and came up with the TPS. (KAIZEN INSTITUE INDIA, 2013) Figure 1 House of TPS, with Jidoka as one of the pillars and Kaizen at the base Source: http://leanmanufacturingtools.org/489/jidoka/ One such element was the automatic loom Toyoda had created which could stop whenever it detected a thread break. This invention was to give rise to the idea of Jidoka. Jidoka means Build in Quality and also Autonomation, or automation with a human touch. This implies that machines have become humanly intelligent and can detect errors as they arise. Jidoka aims to build in quality by: 1) automating the machine to detect problems so it can stop working at the first sign in order to reduce waste and 2) separating man from the machine in order to make the humans focus on the bigger picture. (ART OF LEAN,INC) Kaizen or continuous improvement is impossible without the principle of Jidoka. Much like Jidoka, Kaizen also aims to reduce waste resulting from defects and inefficiencies. At Toyota, it is believed that quality should be built in at every process and for that Jidoka is exercised through inspection of standardized work (human work of repetitive nature which is not wasteful and is learnt and systematized over the years) done both visually and through measuring instruments. (ART OF LEAN,INC) Jidoka also emphasizes that not only should defects be indentified but also their solutions found in a timely manner with this in mind that these defects should not repeat; Jidoka can be called a method of continuous observation and learning that aims to achieve improvement at every step in the production line. To conclude, it is fair to say that Kaizen or continuous improvement is very much dependent on Jidoka which is the continuous identification and rectification of problems with the aim in mind that these problems should not return. Explain the difference between sequencing and scheduling and discuss their role in operations management. Operations scheduling comes under the planning phase of the operation and it is the use of timing decisions to decide the start and end of jobs as well as work out the processing times of the individual parts of the jobs in order to create a course in which the resources available to the organization must be used to create output efficiently. Scheduling is used in both services and manufacturing and decides on the best use of the resources given the constraints the organization is operating under. Mostly these constraints are dealing with the capacity or the limitations of the humans and the machinery of the organization. (REFERENCE FOR BUSINESS) Sequencing is a similar term in operations but simplified in nature as it does not take into account the timing and the resource utilization decisions. In other words it is a simple ordering of the jobs. (UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA) Sequencing is as simple as the ordering in which a bank teller will process five customers without giving thought to the start and the end times of the process times per customer. (IZMIR EKONOMI UNIVERSITASI) Scheduling uses sequencing as the framework and adds timing calculations and capacity constraints to the orderings. Operations management has come to rely heavily in recent times on scheduling as emphasis on just-in-time and lean manufacturing has increased. (REFERENCE FOR BUSINESS) Since organizations now prefer to deliver the services and products as orders come up and do not believe in piling up inventory, scheduling and sequencing are essential as they allow them to create work plans ahead of time. A work plan tells them the sequence in which the activities will be conducted and the times each of these activities will take under the capacity and other constraints. This lets them know the minimum time an order will take and helps them decide how many orders they can take in a specified time to deliver satisfactorily. Bibliography ART OF LEAN,INC. Toyota Production Systen A Basic Handbook. [online]. [Accessed 19 Apr 2017]. Available from World Wide Web: IZMIR EKONOMI UNIVERSITASI. Courses. [online]. [Accessed 19 Apr 2017]. Available from World Wide Web: KAIZEN INSTITUE INDIA. 2013. Taichi Ohno's Contribution. [online]. [Accessed 19 Apr 2017]. Available from World Wide Web: REFERENCE FOR BUSINESS. Operations Scheduling. [online]. [Accessed 19 Apr 2017]. Available from World Wide Web: UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA. Operations Scheduling. [online]. [Accessed 19 Apr 2017]. Available from World Wide Web: