The basic intent of the Toyota production system is to increase profits by reducing costs through the elimination of all waste such as inventory or labor that is too much.To achieve cost reductions, production must be quickly and flexibly adjust to changes in market demand without excess time on useless. Such ideas were achieved with the concept of JIT: produce the goods required, the amount required, and when necessary.
At Toyota, the Kanban system has been developed as a way to post production for a month and managing JIT. To implement the Kanban system, is required smoothing production by leveling the number and variety of spare parts by taking the last line of the raft. This reduction in time required for production orders, for a variety of spare parts should be produced quickly every day. This can be achieved with small lot size production or one-piece production and transport of one-piece. Production of a small lot can be achieved by shortening the time of preparation, and production of one piece will be achieved by dual-process workers who worked in a line of double-handling process. A standard operating routine will ensure completion of all tasks to process one unit of a product in one cycle time. Support JIT production by products that are 100 percent “good” will be guaranteed by Autonomasi (defect in autonomous control systems). Finally, improvement activities will contribute to the overall process by changing the default operating, repair certain defects, and finally, by improving employee morale.
Where did this idea come from? What needs to bring it? They are believed to come from market constraints faced by the Japanese automobile industry in the days of post-war large variations in production quantities are small. Since around 1950, Toyota has consistently think, that it would be dangerous to blindly imitate the Ford system (which minimizes average unit cost by producing in large quantities).American way of mass production techniques have been quite good in high-growth period, which lasted until 1973. nevertheless, in a period of low growth-rate after the oil crisis, the Toyota production system more desirable and used by many industries in Japan to increase the profit by reducing costs or eliminate waste.
Toyota production system is unique and revolutionary, and therefore, when applying this system of production outside of Japan, required special attention and consideration of management-labor relations and transactions with foreign companies..