Before taking charges of Toyota Motors, Akio Toyoda visited a car dealership in Ann Harbour (Michigan). The grandson of Toyota’s founder was there to inspect the undercarriage of a Tundra pickup truck. Why, you ask? Because the model had been quite a bit troublesome, and subject to recalls.
What Mr Toyoda was practicing was a time-honored tradition in the Toyota Production System, called ‘genchi genbutsu’ translated as ‘go to the spot ‘, or find out where the trouble is through first-hand observation.”
The lesson to take from this way of working are simple to practice if you agree to stay humble and go to the reality of business.
- What is the real problem? “Diagnosing [a] problem requires the discipline of looking for the root cause ». You do not know until you take the time to investigate.”
- How do we fix it? This might be as simple as a process overhaul, or as complicated as a product recall.
- Who can best execute the fix? Not everyone is a born problem-solver. You need to have people who like asking questions but [also] have the facility to … implement solutions.”
The lesson : Use your downtime these days to root out the causes of any ongoing problems; that way, they’ll be fixed by the time things start to look up.
Source: Inspired and adapted from Harvard Business Publishing
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©-2009 Marketing Automotive – Bernhard Adriaensens – International Consultant in Automotive Marketing and Management
