It was almost 20 years ago.
I told someone
I was once told, "I will teach you a job. You teach me golf."
We went around each process on Friday and held a regular Kaizen study session.
After that, most participating members will hold an annual social gathering for one night.
The Kaizen Study Group will be held in a tense atmosphere with a sense of tension that can be said to be a serious game.
On the other hand, at the social gathering, will be a rude lecture and a place where we can exchange free opinions.
On Saturday, the day after a social gathering, I heard the words on the morning of my return.
At that time, even if I said to teach golf, my "aggressive golf" was not completed, and I couldn't teach people.
I immediately refused, "I want you to teach me your job, but I don't have the power to teach golf."
After that, I only had to set up a golf competition after the social gathering, but this was also an annual event among golf enthusiasts, and I had a good time.
The word "I'll teach you a job" has become a word that has a significant impact on my life after that.
The lord of this word is the president at that time.
Even now, he is playing an active role under the guidance of Kaizen here and there.
This person is the beloved disciple of Taiichi Ohno, the originator of the famous TPS.
He was the one who made the TPS with Honorary Chairman Zhang and Technical Officer Ikebuchi. It is called the second generation.
I have heard from the current president Akio Toyoda's boss, that it has been about four times.
There is a concept of "post-process take-back" of TPS,
"Mr Ohno (who came up with the idea of taking over the post-process) was great," he once said with deep emotion.
At first, I didn't understand what it meant to be "I'll teach you a job." After that, however, only this word remained in the back of my head, and sometimes I was conscious of it.
One day, the president came to our office.
The first issue was "think about our improvement method."
Toyota's solution to the problem is to consider what it should be and fill the gap with the current situation.
I considered not deviating from the basics.
From the customer's point of view, I devised a method to highlight what it should be by superimposing it on my role in the organization and creating a form for consideration.
To visualize the current situation, based on the tool called "Omote Hyojun" used at the production site, while improving the indirect management work, the visualization tool through trial and error. Has been maintained.
By examining the issues derived from it and eliminating non-value-added operations, we improved the process and added a way to utilize IT tools.
Our unique improvement method aims to improve human abilities in the process of making improvements through the methods that have been completed in this way.
Using this technique as a weapon, I walked through all the workplaces in the company and spent every day sowing and growing KAIZEN seeds.
When this activity spread to some extent within the company, the president came to our office again.
The next challenge was to "get into development this time."
I went to the design manager and asked, "Let's proceed with KAIZEN together."
However, he said, "What do you know about the design?"
"Well, even so, it's rude to pay in advance," he said, pointing to an empty desk.
"Please think about what you can do here for a while and make a suggestion."
Anyway, I was able to get one step closer to their realm.
Then, if you stay in the same room, you will become acquainted and have conversations.
A few days later, we interviewed and agreed to create a "table" for the most recent design phase.
When I created the "Omote Hyojun", I could see the redo.
The designer draws it. The person in charge of production engineering sees it and points it out. After that, I found out that I was drawing again.
I went to the person in charge of production engineering to get the back.
Then, "That was when I found a violation of the production engineering requirements, pointed it out and had the drawing corrected."
He gave me the testimony.
I wasn't pleased with the designer's failure, but I remember stroking my chest, saying, "I can see the future."
The designers have pride, so they didn't immediately admit the fact of redoing.
Here, I asked the person in charge of production engineering to appear as a witness again.
The designer said, "There was a lot of redoing, but not all."
"Since the delivery date was approaching, I knew that I violated the requirement, but I thought I should fix it later," he said honestly.
After that, Kaizen's activities proceeded by analyzing the cause of the violation that could not be protected and analyzing the actual person-hours of the designer in detail.
The command from the president did not end there.
The president also came to our office.
The next task was to "enter the DR field this time."
DR is a place called Design Review, where the boss checks the drawings created by the person in charge.
Through my experience so far, I could show my presence, so I asked the designer to listen to the DR schedule and attend it without any hesitation.
However, when I witnessed the DR, I couldn't come up with an idea of what to do.
I thought, "DR is a place where my boss and subordinates have a conversation in front of the drawing, so let's visualize the conversation," I went to the place with a voice recorder.
Listening to the conversation live, I didn't see any problems.
I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I transcribed the conversation and asked the parties to read it.
"What? Did you have a conversation like this?"
"This means that we haven't had basic education. I regret it."
I got the reaction.
Unexpectedly, I discovered that the conversation transcription becomes a splendid "table".
After this, they noticed that the boss's checkpoint was stored in the boss's head, which led to positive Kaizen that they checked at the time of drawing.
So far, I have solved the president's orders one by one, but looking back, I was able to squeeze a lot of knowledge into my mind before I could teach Kaizen to others.
It's a memory I thought through and thought about, so I'll never forget it.
We could look at the improvement from various angles by considering our improvement method.
And I realized again how wonderful Toyota's problem-solving is.
I also experienced that if I could see things at the manufacturing site, design site, and a higher level of abstraction, I could see many things in common.
I also understood that "I'll teach you a job" was to give a task.
Not only did I give them a task, but they also took a closer look until I solved the problem.
The challenges from the president came down one after another.
I don't play games, but I think it's the same as playing games.
At the end of the game, I noticed the existence of "I was able to master the way I work."
When I noticed, my current stance of supporting Kaizen is to give the task of being handed over to the president.