Toyota Kirloskar Motors Pvt. Ltd - Lean Practices - Case Study

http://www.toyotabharat.com/inen/about/tkm_production.aspx
Facility to visit the plant in groups http://www.toyotabharat.com/inen/about/plant_tour.aspx


2 Jan 2014
Total Number of employees 6400+
Installed capacity 310,000
http://www.indiaprwire.com/pressrelease/auto/20140102279871.htm

Resource efficiency at TKM India
http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jbm/papers/Vol4-issue4/B0440815.pdf


30 November 2013
Mr. V. Ramesh, Senior Vice President, Toyota Kirloskar Motors addressed a student conference Prayojan on the theme ‘Lean and Quality Revolution- Design to Delivery (The Toyota Way)’. He emphasised on the philosophy of Customer First; for Toyota, Quality means meeting and exceeding customers’ expectations at a cost that represents value to them. He explained some of the  facets of the unique Toyota Production System like Just-In-Time, Jidoka (quality built into the production process), Genchi Genbutsu (“go and see for yourself” to understand the real situation), Kaizen (Continuous Improvement), Mieruka (Visual Control), ‘Quality Gate’ after each process, Respect for People and feedback from customers and dealers which TKM is implementing in India.
http://imnublog.wordpress.com/2013/12/02/prayojan2013/

2013
Hiroshi Nakagawa, Managing Director and CEO of Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM),  visited the paint shop at the company's facilities in Bidadi, 40 kilometres south of Bangalore to personally visit the plant to see how a position change in the paint shop's equipment (result of kaizen by the shop people) resulted in a five second saving per vehicle.

This is Genchi Genbutsu, or on-site inspection, a core principle of the Toyota Production System (TPS). Nakagawa, who has been a TPS practitioner for four decades, doesn't believe in seeing things on his computer screen  but  prefers to go where the action is. During the on-site visit or study, sensory organs of the manager will be alert - smell, sound, vision, and that will help in locating more improvement ideas.


The Toyota motto is Safety First, Quality Must, Kaizen Forever. Vikram Kirloskar, vice chairman of TKM, signed up for a joint venture in 1997 to learn from  the number one manufacturing company in the world.

The company annual revenues stand at Rs. 11,589 crore now.

Toyota production system is a triangle with ' Current Process' at one end, 'Standard' at another and 'Target Setting' making up the third.

In the case of standard processes, there is much stress on PDCA, or Plan, Do, Check and Action.  It is traditional management theory only, retold by Deming in his own way, but Toyota sticks to it. Every standard process has to be implement, results have to be checked with plan and if any deviations are there, the cause have to be found out to make the process work. Otherwise, one goes back to the old standard process and continues his effort for improvement.

Lean Supply Chain Relationships

Relationship of TKM with its 110 vendors countrywide is based on a high level of hand-holding in the processes and process improvement.

Motherson Sumi Systems supplies wires harnesses and plastic mouldings.

Motherson Sumi's General Manager Shivendra Mathur gives credit to Toyota  as a very good sensei (teacher): On the Motherson shopfloor, Toyota's 'Parts & Information Flow' process ensures zero over-inventory. Last June, the process identified four areas in the shopfloor that were overstocked and Toyota managers helped the company to  review these processes and streamline them.

Kanban systems are used in TKM for  lean management.

The Rs 2,000-crore Lumax Industries supplies rare combination lamps, shift lever and small lamps to the Etios platform.

Typically, a 4-6 member team from TKM visits all suppliers and guides them through various aspects of lean production. The Toyota Way gets cascaded as Lumax  and others try to improve their suppliers. For Toyota parts and assembles, Lumax has 40 suppliers and Lumax is working for improving their efficiency with continuous learning from the TPS.



A captive supplier, Toyota Kirloskar Auto Parts (TKAP), on the TKM premises gives a demonstration of the Toyota Way of supplier partnership. The three plants of TKAP spread over 50 acres provide  gasoline engines and transmission for the Etios platform and gearboxes for Toyota's integrated multi-utility vehicles (IMUV). They also make axles and shafts for Innova.



The company systematically picks up components from its 47-odd local vendors. While components are picked up from local suppliers, say, eight times a day, they are picked  from a far-flung supplier near the Wagah border once a day and reach the TKAP facility in five days. Toyota does not believe in zero inventory for zero inventory's sake. Zero inventory is demanded when even one piece of inventory is waste. Decisions are made rationally in Toyota Production System. TKAP supplies to TKM eight times a day. For TKAP, the turnaround time from the time an empty truck comes to its plant to loading it and sending it to TKM, is 20 minutes. The other suppliers are also given standard times or target times within which they have to load their parts in the transport vehicle.

Heijunka or leveling the daily production is practiced so as not to overload the system with any excess demand for one type of part.

A plant visit illustrates how every process is visible. It is called meiruka. In Toyota, opaqueness is avoided and the process is made visible to all including operators. Making problems visible and solving problems is a daily chore.

TKM has 6,000 people

To achieve the Toyota Way, every stakeholder must be on the same page in terms of teamwork, efficiency and understanding.

http://m.economictimes.com/features/corporate-dossier/how-toyota-brought-its-famed-manufacturing-method-to-india/articleshow/msid-19381179.cms

2012
Plant visit to Toyota Kirloskar
http://www.motorbeam.com/cars/toyota-cars/toyota-india-plant-visit-report/

2009
Company's vision and mission
http://tkmombudsman.com/index_files/tkm_coe_rest.pdf

June 2009
Article in Outlook
http://business.outlookindia.com/article_v3.aspx?artid=102385

2003
TKAP to make manual transmission as an EOU
http://www.hindu.com/biz/2003/01/20/stories/2003012000170300.htm

http://m.economictimes.com/features/corporate-dossier/how-toyota-brought-its-famed-manufacturing-method-to-india/articleshow/msid-19381179.cms

To be expanded further