Toyotism: flexible production and teamwork

In one line

Toyotism is a flexible production model: it makes what the customer asks for, in the quantity requested, with quality assured in the process itself and with multiskilled workers organized in teams.

What it is

Bellon Álvarez, citing Torres and Montero, describes Toyotism (flexible or lean production) as resting on two axes: innovation in shop-floor labor management and the organization's internal control mechanisms. It is a method that seeks to increase effectiveness by radically eliminating losses and surpluses, and it rests on two pillars: "just in time" and autonomation, which Ohno summed up as "automation with a human touch."

The same paper cites Romero to list its elements: strategic direction, just-in-time production, total quality management, teamwork, managerial decentralization, a numerically flexible workforce and functionally flexible workers. And it cites Aoki for the concept of shojinka: because workers learn several functions and rotate between workstations, the number of people on the line can be adjusted to demand.

What sets it apart from Fordism

Zuccarino compares the two models and points out concrete contrasts:

Aspect	Fordism	Toyotism
Production	Standardized series, large volumes	"Just in time": diversify the offering according to what customers ask for
Control	Supervision by foremen	Control and monitoring among peers
Relationship between workers	Competition is encouraged	Emphasis is placed on teamwork
Goal with the worker	More efficiency in the task	Identification with the company's values
Tasks	Technical and social division of labor	Functional multiskilling

The author also clarifies that they are not absolute opposites: both have rigid traits, both made job security and a career within the company fundamental premises, and Toyota-style production never became the norm the way Ford's did; what was carried over from it to other models was mainly its flexibility aspects.

Real example

Bellon Álvarez cites a comparison by Shibata between a New United Motor Manufacturing (NUMMI) plant in the United States and a Toyota plant in Takaoka, Japan: Toyota's production operators changed machines and tools and could locate failures in production, tasks that NUMMI's operators normally did not do. Koike concluded that this was the main reason why productivity at the Takaoka plant was between 15 and 20 percent higher.

Zuccarino provides the historical context: in the testimonies of Bolivian workers from the 1920s and 1930s he finds traits that are associated with Toyotism today, such as multiskilling (a worker who learned every branch of mechanics), and he concludes that Fordism and Toyotism are very different but not incompatible.

Benefits

• Flexibility in the face of changes in product mix and demand, with minimal inventories.
• Quality built into the process (see jidoka) instead of inspected at the end.
• Staff with more knowledge of the whole process.

Limitations to keep in mind

• Bellon Álvarez records a serious criticism: the model intensifies work and can bring worse working conditions, accelerated paces, long hours and pressure for unlimited availability.
• It depends on a culture of cooperation and nearby suppliers; according to the same paper, the geographic concentration of know-how is a condition for it to work.
• Transplanting it without its context usually gives partial results, as Zuccarino observes about Latin America.

In summary

Toyotism is the organizational response to Fordism: flexibility instead of scale, team instead of foreman, quality in the process instead of inspection at the end. Its technical expression is the Toyota Production System, and its version exported to the rest of the world is Lean Manufacturing.