How Toyota Integrates Product Development

How Toyota Integrates Product Development

1. Six organizational mechanisms

   • Three are social processes
     • Mutual adjustment
       • Succinct written reports for most communication.
       • Meetings for intensive problem solving.
       • mix of written communication and meetings
     • Close supervision
       • Technically astute functional supervisors who mentor, train and develop their engineers.
       • Strong functions that are evaluated based on overall system performance.
     • Integrative leadership from product heads
       • Project leader as system designer, with limitations on authority.
       • chief engineer as lead designer
   • Three are forms of standardization
     • Design standards
       • Standards that are maintained by the people doing the work and that keep pace with current company capabilities.
     • Standard work processes
       • Standard milestones-project leader decides timing, functions fill in details.
       • Standard forms and procedures that are simple, devised by the people who use them, and updated as needed.
     • Standard skills
       • Rotation on intervals that are longer than the typical product cycle, and only to positions that complement the engineers' expertise.