The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles From the World's Greatest Manufacturer

by Jeffrey K. Liker

5. Improves Safety. Wiremold Corporation, one of the early adopters of TPS in America, has an exemplary safety record, winning a number of state safety awards. Yet when they worked to transform their large-batch-process company to one-piece flow, they decided not to put in place a special safety program. Art Byrne, the former president and a student of TPS, led the transformation and knew that one-piece flow would naturally improve safety, because smaller batches of material would be moved in the factory. Smaller batches meant getting rid of forklift trucks, which are a major cause of accidents. It meant lifting and moving smaller containers of material, so accidents relating to lifting went away. Safety was getting better because of a focus on flow—even without focusing on safety.1 6. Improves Morale. Wiremold, in its lean transformation, also found its morale improved in every year of the transformation. Before the transformation, only 60% of employees agreed with various responses about the company being a good place to work. That went up each year, to over 70% by the fourth year of transformation (Emiliani, 2002). In one-piece flow, people do much more value-added work and can immediately see the results of that work, giving them both a sense of accomplishment and job satisfaction. 7. Reduces Cost of Inventory. You free up capital to invest elsewhere when it's not invested in inventory sitting on the floor. And companies do not have to pay the carrying costs of t...