Toyota Lean Academy
Who we are
At Toyota we are proud to be the original source of lean-thinking. Lean as a philosophy has emerged over recent decades and is now successfully established and implemented all over the world in all branches of industry. However, the origins of lean are based entirely on the Toyota Production System (TPS), which was developed by Taiichi Ohno in the 1950s.
The main questions that usually arise when starting to plan your lean transformation are: How should I do this? Where do I start? Who can help me with the implementation? We aim to answer these questions by providing a lean partnership that has the benefit of hands-on experience in lean transformation.
Our Lean Academy team has a broad experience in terms of both lean application and lean leadership, all of which we have built up in our own factories and through our own experiences. We can therefore provide full support and guidance for your lean journey, whether you are just starting out or if your journey has been going on for many years. We welcome you to learn lean from the source!
Get advice and support directly from Toyota
Toyota is the world-recognized origin of lean-thinking, built on the foundation of the Toyota Production System. At Toyota we put a lot of emphasis on the foundational elements. Visual management, 5S and daily management are the methods that shape a company's culture and prepare it for lean transformation. Not only do we focus on optimising the flow, but we prioritise people and their skill development, as they are key to drive change and optimise processes. We also dig deep into the leadership behaviour of the company as we know that support and involvement from the top down is the key to ensuring lean transformation results that will stand the test of time.
How we build a lean project with you
Lean assessment
The lean journey starting point is to get your current situation reviewed by someone who has seen the lean journey themselves. Together we go the source and analyse your flow, leadership and people.
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Lean advisory
Selected members of the Lean Academy have extensive hands-on lean leadership experience from inside Toyota and have personally been involved in the lean transformation journey of the European factories’ integration.
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Jishuken project
We use the legendary Jishuken method as a model to improve a specific process or problem, which will accelerate your lean process performance.
Lean training
We offer lean methods and tools in open trainings, hosted by our European network, but we can also tailor training focusing on your company's specific needs.
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Lean transformation
Our lean transformation programmes come with a roadmap to help you with the implementation by focusing on your flow, management and processes.
Read more about Lean transformation >>
Investment planning
The Lean Academy’s investment planning service provides expert advice and assessment to ensure that lean principles are established and maintained as part of the investment and implementation programme.
Toyota Lean Academy Programme
The Toyota Lean Academy programme takes you through each module in a sequence, giving you to the time to dive into every area. Which is ideal for when you're in the beginning of your lean journey or simply want to experience all aspects of lean.
Recommended readings
Scaling lean across the business
Scaling lean across the business
The Leadership Network explores the marriage of two working cultures with a series of articles about Toyota's introduction of lean to Europe. In this second piece we take a closer look at the practices involved in creating harmony and success at plants around the world, uniting diverse cultures and mindsets with a universal set of lean values and processes.
When the Sensei goes away
When the Sensei goes away
Implementing operational excellence into your work culture can be a challenge. That was as well the case during our journey in which we embedded Japanese thinking into all our European teams and processes. We started by adopting, adapting and maintaining lean working practices by building the foundations of a continuous improvement mindset.
Leading teams with empathy
Leading teams with empathy – the Toyota way
Toyota is a brand that embodies production precision driven by meticulous management. Synonymous with excellence, international reputation is undoubtedly the result of a workforce that is engaged, committed and valued. But how does Toyota achieve this? The answer is through strong and transparent leadership that values all stakeholders at every level of the business.
Signify case study
TLA supports Signify in lean leadership
Signify has been on the lean journey for many years already and applies an advanced level of lean to their operations. Since they're not new to lean, their lean programme didn't start from a beginner level.
They already used lean as a tool to involve all employees from the top all the way down to the factory floor in the change process.
Their employees taking part in the lean trainings had high expectations and wanted to be challenged, expecting the lean advisors to elevate their knowledge of lean to a higher level.
Come and meet us
We think lean manufacturing everyday
Toyota's Lean Academy is built on a Europe-wide network of experts, all of whom have been working closely with Toyota's lean operations for several years.
Depending on your requirements the team delivers valuable support, ranging from lean assessment and training, through to complete lean transformation programmes.
•We help and guide you in your lean journey, whether you just started or have been continuously improving for decades.
•We want to share our knowledge with our customers by attending or hosting events all over Europe.
We are hosting our own events on a regular basis. Check out our event list for the upcoming events. Join and book a meeting with us at any of the events by filling out a form.
FAQ
The key target in our approach is sustainable performance results. To achieve this, we develop people and by this, the whole organisation. We are not only looking for quick results and payback. We want that people are changing their mind and behaviour towards problem solving and kaizen attitude. This contributes to eliminating waste and makes Kaizen easier. In summary: we develop people to achieve strong, sustainable results.
Our advice is built on our own experience through practical participation. In the year 2000 Toyota acquired BT Industries, a Swedish mid-size producer of material handling equipment. In the years after the acquisition during the integration process, we collected deep know-how in the Toyota way/TPS when working together with our Japanese sensei's (teachers). It is this unique insight that we use in our advice towards our customers. We know how to see the lean journey completely through.
The most important thing: total participation. Complete top management commitment and people engagement from the beginning!
The foundation and values stay solid in the Toyota Group. Toyota Production System (TPS) for example is the same, regardless of whether you are making cars or forklifts. However, the exact applications can differ depending on where you are in Toyota. Toyota Lean Academy uses the methods and tools in which we have experience ourselves which is not only strict TPS but also relates to other successful approaches that we used in Toyota especially related to quality management, logistics etc. We also know that our own Toyota forklift plants are not all 100% the same, even when they are producing almost the same product. Culture, people and development is always a little different. Therefore, Toyota gives some freedom to go your own way, but in the framework of Toyota Way and TPS.
This is very important for motivational reasons and this approach we will also translate when we work with our customers. We provide guidelines to develop yourself with your own culture and your own people. We provide the clear direction and framework through our experience but listen carefully to you as a customer regarding individual needs. This to realise the best possible solution.
If you really want to go the Toyota way, we need your 100% commitment and 100% dedication, especially if you want to join a lean transformation program. That means top management taking the lead and involving the people of the organization.
There are a lot of different opportunities to measure. Our target is that the improvement created in our work should last for many years, and not only be a short initial payback. Therefore, we focus very much on installing the necessary infrastructure to maintain the new ways of working, for example daily management.
Visual management is one vital approach in the follow-up process. For example, the visualisation on Asaichi (morning meeting) boards, displaying safety, environment, quality, delivery, cost KPIs for each section. In our Jishuken projects we formulize the improvement targets very carefully after assessing the current situation. In this way, we can anticipate the results and follow carefully at the Jishuken obeya. In the end, you will see it in the financial results.
Yes of course. In our factories we have very complex high mix low volume machinery with tact time measuring several hours and at these processes we apply the lean methods. In every business or process you can distinguish between what is value adding and what is not value adding in the processes. This is the base, it works everywhere, even in your home.
We follow the TPS "true north" vision when setting up our programmes and projects. The compass in our logotype is pointing towards the True North and it refers to doing what we should rather than what we can do. That means the ideal or state of TPS perfection that we should strive for and be guided by when creating the targets going from the current state. This describes well also how we would work with you, staying close to the vision when creating the targets and road map.
This is the TPS true north vision:
- Security for people
- ZERO defects
- 100% value added
- One-piece flow, on demand