Methodologies and Philosophies
Taylorism, Fordism, Toyotism, the Toyota Production System, Lean principles, Theory of Constraints and SWOT, with a map to choose: where each way of producing and managing comes from, and when each one fits.
Real case
A snack factory in Quito had a customer service level of 89.58% and did not fulfill all orders. Its fryer, the bottleneck, could process 576 kg in an 8-hour shift but processed 363.3 kg per day: it worked about 5 of the 8 hours. The Theory of Constraints proposes attacking that point (less setup time, smaller batches, better scheduling); the article presents this as a proposal, not as a measured result.
Source: Villagómez, Viteri and Medina, Enfoque UTE, Universidad Tecnológica Equinoccial (Ecuador). See the article
8 articles
Fordism: the assembly line and mass production
Fordism took Taylor's scientific management and built it into an assembly line: standardized parts, minimal tasks and large production runs. It worked very well as long as the market wanted the same thing for everyone.
Lean Manufacturing: eliminating waste and producing according to value
Lean is the exported version of the Toyota system: a way of looking at the whole process by asking what adds value for the customer and eliminating the rest, with a set of techniques applied in a certain order.
Methodology map: which one fits each problem
Taylorism, Fordism, Toyotism, Lean, Six Sigma, TOC and total quality do not compete: they answer different questions. This guide puts them on a timeline and suggests which one to start with depending on the problem you have.
SWOT matrix
SWOT crosses what happens inside (strengths and weaknesses) with what happens outside (opportunities and threats) to decide which strategies are worth pursuing. It works for a company, a maintenance department or a project.
Taylorism: the scientific management of work
Frederick Taylor put the stopwatch on the shop floor and separated whoever thinks up the work from whoever carries it out. Time study comes from that, and so does much of the criticism still leveled at him.
Theory of Constraints (TOC): improving by attacking the bottleneck
Goldratt's Theory of Constraints starts from a simple idea: the capacity of the whole system is set by its weakest link. That is why improving any other point does not improve the result, while improving the constraint does.
Toyota Production System (TPS): the house, the pillars and the tools
The TPS is the system with which Toyota learned to produce only what is needed, when it is needed and without defects. It is best explained as a house: a roof of objectives, two pillars (just-in-time and jidoka) and a foundation of standardization and improvement.
Toyotism: flexible production and teamwork
Toyotism responds to what Fordism could not do: produce small quantities of many different things, with quality built into the process and workers who perform more than one task. It is the cultural basis of what was later called Lean.