Toyota’s WARNING To Business LEADERS In 2024 | Alan Weir | Lean Made Simple
Alan Weir is the Director of Production Operations at Toyota Motor Manufacturing UK.
In this episode, Ryan Tierney and Matthew Thompson from Lean Made Simple ask him about:
Working his way up from the shop floor to the level of leadership he’s in today
What “Genchi Genbutsu” is and why it matters to your business
How he spends the first two hours of his day
The number one mistake leaders and managers make
His passion for built-in quality
And the greatest challenge of his career so far
Check it out!
Links:
Book a visit to Toyota here: https://tlmcshop.toyotauk.com/collections/our-courses
Sign up for a Lean Approach Course: https://www.toyotauk.com/lean-approach/#register-interest
Connect with Alan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-weir-591a24a8/?originalSubdomain=uk
Welcome to Lean Made Simple: a podcast for people who want to change their business and their lives one step at a time. I’m Ryan Tierney from Seating Matters, a manufacturing company from Limavady, Northern Ireland that employs 60+ people. Almost ten years ago, I came across this thing called “lean” and it transformed my life… now I want to share this message with as many people as possible.
This podcast unpacks our learnings, lessons and principles developed over the last decade in a fun, conversational way that will hopefully empower you on your own business journey — whether you’ve been doing lean for years or are just starting out!
Check it out on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or any other podcast platform by searching “lean made simple.”
Thanks and all the best.
— Ryan Tierney
Full Transcription of Episode
Alan:
I don't want to read reports. I don't want to see PowerPoint presentations. I want to go to the shop floor and understand the facts, see the actual parts, see the actual machine, genchi genbutsu.
Matt:
What is that?
Alan:
Go to the source. Understand the facts.
Ryan:
Welcome to Lean Made Simple, a podcast for people who want to transform their business and their lives one step at a time. Today is actually a very special day, because we're here at the Toyota plant in Derby and we've got the chance to sit down with director of production operations, Alan Weir. Starting off really quickly, what's your story? How have you ended up here at Toyota?
Alan:
So I'm originally from Belfast. I went to Vauxhall Motors in Ellesmere Port on their graduate scheme. And after doing several jobs in there in production control and as a foreman on the chassis line and assembly, I then heard about Toyota UK establishing a plant in Derbyshire. And I thought, that's for me. I applied and I started in May 1991, and when I started there was only around 15 people actually in the plant. And you think of that today, there's two and a half thousand. And when we first started, they shipped us off to Japan within a week. And there we learned firsthand the Toyota production system and everything that goes with it.
Ryan:
So speaking of immersing yourself in the culture, could you let us know how you spend the first two hours of your day?
Alan:
Well, I normally stop around 7 AM in the morning, and I intentionally block the first two hours of my day out for genchi genbutsu.
Matt:
What are you saying? What is that?
Alan:
Genchi genbutsu.
Matt:
What is that?
Alan:
Going to the shop floor, understanding, the facts, the real facts. I don't want to read reports, I don't want to see PowerPoint presentations. I want to go to the shop floor and understand the facts. Those two hours are sacrosanct in terms of understanding. So any problems from the previous night shift or previous shift, I can go understand, and if there's any startup problems on that shift, I'll go and understand the facts, understand the actual problem.
If it's a machine problem, understand what's going on, if it's a parts problem, understand the parts, look at data, et cetera. And then from nine o'clock we have something called another Japanese name, asakai meeting. Asakai is basically morning meeting. The morning production meeting runs from 9:05 to 9:20, 15 minutes, short and succinct. And in that, we go through all the key indicators starting with safety, any safety issues from the previous shifts, the quality condition, operation rate, production issues. And then we finish up with any general sort of company information. 15 minutes, short and succinct.
Ryan:
And that meeting takes place in a really fancy boardroom somewhere, does it?
Alan:
Of course it doesn't. It's on the shop floor. But again, that's all by genchi genbutsu, go under the source, understanding the facts. But in that meeting, we like to hear from the shop floor members. If there's a defect being caused, let's really understand in an open environment, no blame culture, why was that defect caused? What's the real root cause of that defect? And then let's understand from the members how they're putting together the countermeasure for that problem. And then we track the result of that.
Ryan:
I think it's fascinating because it's in all the books, all the Toyota books that we've all read, go to the gemba, genchi, but here we're sitting in front of yourself as the top leader in the organization. And you're actually doing it. It's not just written in the books. You're actually practicing what you teach.
Alan:
And it's not just that early part of the day. Most of my other meetings, for example, I do every day a divisional review starting on Monday with press and well working through to the divisions each day. That one hour slot is on the shop floor. It's nowhere else. It's on the shop floor. This morning I was in the press shop, they were explaining me some more of the actions towards five S. They were showing me an approval document. They wanted some money for a safety improvement on one of the presses. It's on the press. It's showing me actually what they want to do within how they want to spend that money. So that's the divisional reviews. Of course, we do safety tours on the shop floor. We've got maintenance reviews on the shop floor. Most of my meetings are shop floor based.
Matt:
Alan loves the shop floor so much. We had to wrangle him like, "No, we have to do the podcast in a place where there's not too much noise." You were like, "There's got to be way."
Alan:
We'll go on the shop floor next to do some real stuff. And I also also have to say, I'm not an engineer. My background, I did a degree in business. So when I'm trying to understand a machine problem or a parts problem, which sometimes are very, very technical issues, very, very complicated, the only way they understand that is to go and see the actual parts, see the actual machine. That's where you'll really understand the true facts. If they came to me with an A-three report or a PowerPoint presentation and we did it in the meeting room, I don't think I'd understand half of it. Go to the source, understand the facts.
Ryan:
So a lot of our listeners on the podcast are business owners, small to medium-sized enterprises, and there is a reluctance to almost be on the gemba or be on the shop floor or be where the work happens. And you see it more and more as businesses grow, the leader actually gets further away from where the work actually happens. Why do you see that as a problem or an issue or a bad thing?
Alan:
If you only ever go on the shop floor when there's a problem, the machine broke down or the line stopped, that doesn't foster an environment or culture of openness and development of people. But if you spend more time on the shop floor working with the members, understanding their issues and having a real supportive culture all the time, they will be more open to you in terms of what are the issues and what things that I can help them with. And then together we can solve many, many more problems than just the one big problem that you may have gone down to observe.
Ryan:
You're not just going when there's a problem, you're going, it's built into your routine that you're there.
Alan:
You've got to make it built into your everyday routine. For example, if I go down now and walk along the shop floor, I can guarantee I will be stopped by a number of either members or supervisors and they'll ask me a question or they'll just say hello. And we've got a really good relationship with many, most of the members on the shop floor. They know they can stop me anytime and ask me any question, whatever's going on in the business. And that's the sort of open relationship you'll only get through being on the shop floor and making your presence seen on the shop floor.
Matt:
Which is crazy because in massive businesses of this size, people of your ranking and your level of leadership, they're tucked away in a corner office and there's a door and there's secretaries and assistants. There's like all these layers to actually interact with you.
Alan:
Let me give you one example that we do. I do it almost once per week. We have what we call a face-to-face meeting. And that's where I will go and join the members having their lunch and they're completely open to ask me any question at all, what's going on in the business, from what's the next model coming into the business, to any HR issues, to what's the volume condition? Or there could be an issue with the toilets or anything, then they will raise any. But I absolutely relish those meetings. Maybe they were first daunting at first when we first did them, but now I make sure I do one once every week because you can really understand what's going on in the member's minds, what are the key issues that they're worried about? And I can give them the answer. I can give them the best answer that I can face to face. They can hear it from one of the company directors.
Matt:
You have so much to be proud of from your time here. On the floor, is there something that you're just like, that is incredible what we've been able to implement? It could literally be anything.
Alan:
I'm really proud of what we've done over the past couple of years on quality. We have focused on what's called direct run. And direct run is the number of cars, the percentage of cars that go straight through. They don't come offline for a defect. And when I say a defect, that may be a minor scratch that was called in the build process or it can be a more significant issue. But we have focused on direct run. And the thing about focusing on direct run is you're building in quality to the process. It's not about inspecting quality out. That's not the Toyota production system. It's all about built in quality. And because our focus on direct run and built in quality, that's gave us absolutely tremendous results over the past two years. And that's only through engaging in our members, listening to the voice of our members and engaging them in problem solving and giving them the tools and the knowledge and skills to do problem solving.
Ryan:
You have two and a half thousand brains, two and a half thousand names.
Alan:
That's completely the way I see it. And why should we not include all of our members in the problem solving process? So we've got them to give them the skills, the skills to do problem solving, the tools to do problem solving. If they want to move a flow rack or adjust something, give them the skills to do that and they can be doing that every day rather than waiting on an offline support area to do that for them. That's what we all strive towards.
Ryan:
So Al, in your thirty-two-year career, you've had a very successful career obviously, but what was your biggest challenge during that period? What would say your biggest challenge was for those?
Alan:
I'd say one of my most challenging periods was when I was general manager of the production control division. And I started in that job actually in July 2008, right at the start of the financial crisis. So you can imagine the impact that was having on our production volumes, that gave us lots of supply issues. A year or so after that, we had the earthquake in East Japan, which again, lots of supply issues. I think the year after that we had big floods in Thailand, we had a fire in the Channel Tunnel. Many, many supply issues. But the one thing that I think we are very strong at at Toyota UK is our teamwork and resilience to major production problems. We really get together strong quickly as a team. And you can imagine keeping the plant going in a just-in-time environment with minimum stock through these crises. And in most cases, we got through it without stopping the assembly line.
Ryan:
So final question. TPS, Toyota Production System is sometimes seen as this very complicated philosophy that's hard to implement. What advice would you give to our listeners from small to medium-sized businesses on how they can implement lean practices into their organization in a simple way?
Alan:
Okay, what I would say is, first of all, number one, think in the long-term. Just don't go for short-term solutions. You've got to make a long-term program out of it. That's number one. Number two, try things and don't be afraid of making mistakes. In fact, make mistakes. But the key thing is you learn from them and you try again. And probably the third thing is, and share your experiences and discuss them widely across your organization with other organizations, so as you can all understand the pitfalls. And again, the thing I would say again is you can read a book about the Toyota production system and you can educate yourself in the production Toyota production system, but that will never make you an expert in TPS. You've got to try it, you got to implement it, you got to make mistakes, you got to learn from the mistakes and try again.
Ryan:
So for people watching that would like to come and experience what we have experienced over the last couple of days, what's the first step to people getting on board with that?
Alan:
So there's two ways you can do that. Number one is the entry level, which is our lean approach seminar. And for a fee, small fee, you can have a one day to the production system full experience through our whole plant. And the money that you pay for that, is actually 100% of it goes to charity. The second way is through our TLMC, our Toyota Lean Management Center, which is more consultative, our coaching and development opportunity that we can do with medium and small businesses.
Ryan:
Thanks for your time.
Alan:
Pleasure. Thank you.
Matt:
Really appreciate it. And for anyone listening or watching, you want to get you and your team here, all you have to do is click the link in description wherever you're listening or watching, and Alan and the team will take it from there. Thanks again, and see you again next time.