From service scenarios to the essence of lean: Re-understand the production logic that changes the world
I. The "Lean Inspiration" in the Service Industry: The Value Code Hidden in the Processes
The standardized service phrases of bank tellers, the ingredient stocking rhythm of fast-food stores, and the route optimization of express delivery companies - these "daily operations" in traditional service industries essentially point to the same management logic: eliminate redundancy through standardization and achieve precise matching before customers' needs are clearly defined.
Their commonality lies in that the service process itself is the "product". Facing the massive and ever - changing customer demands, "thinking one step ahead" is more important than "passive response". For example, banks break down the account - opening process into 12 standardized steps to reduce the time for customers to repeatedly fill in information; fast - food brands prepare ingredients in advance according to the sales volume at different time periods to avoid the waste of "ingredients expiring due to over - stocking or running out of stock due to under - stocking"; express delivery companies use algorithms to optimize routes and shorten the "last - mile" delivery time by 30%. These seemingly trivial optimizations precisely fit the core of lean management - eliminating the "waste" that does not create value and making resources be used where they are most needed.
II. Reflection behind the Lean Mania: Do We Really Understand the "Toyota Logic"?
Nowadays, "lean production" has become a "hot term" in the business world. From the production lines in the manufacturing industry to the project management in Internet companies, everyone wants to replicate Toyota's success. But few people ask: Are we learning the "lean tools" or the "essence of lean"?
Toyota's success has never been as simple as "introducing the Kanban system" or "implementing 5S". Its underlying logic is a set of "survival wisdom grown out of crises". In the 1950s, Toyota had just recovered from the war - torn ruins and was facing the triple dilemmas of "scarce resources, a narrow market, and a shortage of funds". Ford - style mass production requires a large amount of inventory and fixed orders, while Toyota neither had enough raw materials nor could it sell standardized cars in a "one - size - fits - all" way. This "desperate situation" forced Toyota to find a "smarter way" - replacing "mass production" with "Just - in - Time (JIT)" and responding to market changes with "small - batch, multi - variety" production.
III. The Birth of TPS: From a Ford Imitator to an Initiator of the Production Revolution
The core of the Toyota Production System (TPS) is the result of "American Industrial Engineering (IE) + Japanese localization transformation":
The "Technical Framework" of IE: Industrial Engineering (IE) was born in the United States at the end of the 19th century. Centered around "improving efficiency, reducing costs, and improving quality", it has established two major technical systems - design and improvement (work study optimizes operation actions, logistics engineering reduces handling waste, and human factors engineering enhances employee comfort) and analysis and evaluation (production planning and control, quality statistical analysis, and cost accounting). Its essence is to "solve management problems with scientific methods".
Toyota's "localized innovation": Taiichi Ohno (the core promoter of TPS) once said, "The Toyota Production System is Toyota-style IE." Toyota didn't copy the American IE but combined it with "Japanese culture" - for example, upgrading "human factors engineering" to the concept of "people-oriented": employees are not "tools" on the assembly line but "subjects capable of identifying problems and driving improvements"; changing "cost control" from "cutting budgets" to "eliminating waste": for instance, inventory is not a "necessary evil" but "redundancy that must be eliminated."
After 20 years of iteration, TPS has formed two core principles: Just-in-Time (JIT) (producing the required quantity only when needed) and Jidoka (not "automation", but "human-machine collaboration - the equipment automatically stops when a problem is detected, and the employee immediately solves it to avoid batch defective products").
IV. The Global Rise of TPS: The "Production Revolution" Amid the Oil Crisis
The oil crisis in 1973 became the "global debut moment" of TPS.
When the large-displacement models of American automobile manufacturers became unsalable due to the soaring oil prices, Toyota's small-displacement cars, with the advantages of "low fuel consumption and low price", quickly captured more than 10% of the US market share. Americans were shocked: This Japanese company that once "imitated Ford" actually used a "more efficient production method" to subvert their belief in "mass production".
Taiichi Ohno later asserted, "If Henry Ford were still alive, he would definitely adopt the Toyota way." This statement stung American enterprises but also spurred their reflection. In the 1980s, Japanese scholar Yasuhiro Monden first introduced TPS systematically in English. In 1990, Professor James P. Womack of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) led a team to conduct a five - year investigation of 90 automobile factories around the world and wrote the book *The Machine That Changed the World*. For the first time, TPS was defined as "Lean Production", and it was pointed out that the essence of lean is "to create the most value with the least resources".
Six years later, Womack further refined the "five principles" of lean in *Lean Thinking*:
1. Define value: Value is determined by customers rather than enterprises (for example, what customers need is "convenient transportation", not "complicated configurations").
2. Identify the value stream: Map out the entire process from raw materials to products and identify the "wastes" that do not create value (such as inventory, waiting, and over - processing).
3. Enable value flow: Break down departmental barriers and make the process continuous rather than interrupted (for example, change the serial connection of design - production - sales to parallel).
4. Pull value: Production is driven by customer demand rather than "push stockpiling" (for example, "make-to-order" replaces "make-to-stock").
5. Strive for perfection: Continuously improve without end (for example, optimizing by 1% every day leads to a 37 - fold improvement in a year).
V. "Toyota House": The "Implementable System" of Lean
In the more than 20 years of researching TPS, I visited the headquarters of Toyota in Japan three times. I squatted beside the production line to observe the operations of the employees and talked with the workshop supervisors about the details of "Kaizen". In 1997, I put forward the concept of "Toyota House" - using the structure of a "house" to clarify the core system of TPS:
1. Roof: A major goal - Cost reduction
Here, "cost" does not mean "cutting employees' salaries" but "eliminating waste that does not create value". For example:
- Inventory waste: Toyota's "Kanban system" reduced inventory from "months" to "hours".
- Waiting waste: Combine two adjacent processes to eliminate the time employees spend "waiting for raw materials".
- Waste of defective products: The jidoka system has reduced the defective product rate from "1%" to "0.01%".
2. Pillars: Two core elements - JIT and Jidoka
Just-in-Time (JIT): For example, in Toyota's production line, when the subsequent process needs raw materials, it sends a "kanban" to the previous process, and the previous process only produces the quantity specified on the "kanban". This completely eliminates the waste of "overproduction" - previously, when producing 100 cars, an inventory of 10 cars was required, but now only 1 car is stocked.
Jidoka: It is not "automation" but "intelligence through human-machine collaboration". For example, "abnormality sensors" are installed on the equipment in the production line. Once a defective product is detected, the equipment will automatically stop, and the employees will immediately come to solve the problem. This "line-stop culture" minimizes the losses caused by "batch defective products". Previously, when defective products flowed to the next process, 100 vehicles needed to be reworked. Now, with a 5 - minute line stop, only 1 vehicle needs to be reworked.
3. Foundation: A major foundation - Continuous improvement (Kaizen)
Before finishing work every day, Toyota's employees will hold a 10 - minute "improvement meeting" to discuss "where the day's processes can be optimized". For example:
- Adjust the position of the tool by 10 centimeters to reduce the time for picking up and putting down.
- Combine two processes to eliminate waiting.
- Convert the operation manual into an "illustrated version" to reduce the training time for new employees.
The accumulation of these "small improvements" forms the "great competitiveness" of TPS. Toyota's production efficiency is 30% higher, costs are 20% lower, and the defective product rate is 50% lower than those in the same industry.
VI. The essence of lean: It is not a tool but the symbiosis of "concept + method"
Many enterprises learn Lean and mistakenly think that "introducing a kanban system" is Lean. However, Toyota's success has never been about "copying tools" but rather the organic combination of "correct concepts + appropriate methods":
1. The concept is the "direction": People-oriented + Eliminate waste
- People-oriented: Employees are not "execution tools" but "the main body of improvement" —— Toyota's "improvement suggestion system" receives 1 million suggestions from employees every year, with an adoption rate of 90%. Each suggestion brings an average of $1,000 in benefits.
- Eliminate waste: Waste is not "inevitable" but "must be eliminated." Toyota divides waste into 7 categories (inventory, waiting, handling, over - processing, over - production, defective products, and motions), and each category has corresponding improvement methods.
2. The method is the framework: with IE as the core technology
IE is Toyota's "technical foundation" – optimize the operation process through work research, reduce handling waste with logistics engineering, and lower the defective product rate via quality control. For example:
- Work study: Reduce the number of operating actions for assembling a car from 100 to 80, and shorten the assembly time for each car by 20 minutes.
- Logistics engineering: By changing the handling route of parts from going around the factory to a straight line, the handling cost of each car is reduced by 15%.
- Quality control: Monitor the production line using "Statistical Process Control (SPC)" to predict defective products in advance and reduce the defective product rate from "1%" to "0.01%".
3. Culture is the driving force: the fertile ground for continuous improvement
Toyota's "continuous improvement" is not a "mandatory requirement" but a "corporate culture" — employees are willing to put forward suggestions because their suggestions will be valued; the company is willing to invest because improvement can bring long - term benefits. For example:
- Toyota's "Kaizen Academy" trains 10,000 employees every year, teaching them "how to identify waste and how to propose improvement suggestions."
- Toyota's "Kaizen Award" rewards 100 "Kaizen Stars" every year, with bonuses ranging from $1,000 to $10,000.
VII. Lean management cannot be "imported": The charm of management lies in "localized innovation"
Drucker once said, "Managers cannot be imported." In fact, the "non-importability" of lean management is essentially the "requirement for localization of management" ——
1. Ideas cannot be replicated
Toyota's "continuous improvement" is based on the Japanese culture of "collectivism" - employees are willing to contribute suggestions to the team. In contrast, European and American enterprises emphasize "individual heroism" more. Simply copying the "improvement meeting" directly will only turn it into a mere formality.
2. The methods cannot be copied blindly
In the United States, the "work study" of IE means "optimizing operational actions". However, at Toyota, it is combined with "human factors engineering". For example, adjusting the height of the workbench to reduce employees' waist fatigue; changing the operation manual to a "picture - text version" to reduce the training time for new employees. This kind of "transformation" is the "vitality" of IE.
3. Culture cannot be transplanted
Toyota's "Jidoka" requires employees to "actively stop the production line." If an enterprise does not have a "fault-tolerant culture," employees will be afraid that "stopping the production line will affect the output." As a result, "defective products will flow to the next process." For example:
- A Chinese enterprise introduced an "autonomation system". However, since "bonus would be deducted for line stoppage", employees didn't stop the production line even when they found problems. As a result, the defective product rate actually increased.
- A European and American enterprise introduced the "Improvement Meeting", but the employees thought that "it's the managers' job to put forward suggestions". As a result, only 10 suggestions were received in half a year, and the adoption rate was 0.
Conclusion: Lean is "plain wisdom", not "mysterious magic"
Returning to the standardization processes in the service industries mentioned at the beginning - for banks, it is essentially "eliminating waste in services"; for fast - food restaurants, the stock - preparation rhythm is essentially "JIT"; for express delivery, the route optimization is essentially "logistics engineering". The success of these industries precisely confirms the "universality" of lean management. Whether it is the manufacturing or service industry, whether it is a large or small company, the core of lean management is "customer - centric, eliminating waste and creating value".
Lean is not a "mysterious magic" but "plain wisdom" - it tells us:
- The best management is not about "doing more" but about "doing less useless work".
- The best enterprises are not the largest in scale but the highest in efficiency.
- The best improvement is not a "major transformation" but "making a 1% progress every day".
The charm of management lies in "innovation according to local conditions" - not "copying others' success", but "using others' logic to solve one's own problems". Toyota learned from Ford, but didn't become "the Ford of Japan"; Chinese enterprises learn from Toyota, and they shouldn't become "the Toyota of China" - instead, they should become "lean enterprises with their own characteristics".
This is the ultimate code of lean management.
(The author is Qi Ershi, Dean of the School of Management at Tianjin University)