Lean initiative practice for supplier developments in Philippines

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate how Toyota deploys Lean Manufacturing and Toyota Production System (TPS) for their automotive parts’ suppliers in Philippines based on the case study and the literature review. Design/methodology/approach – The methods to better understand how Toyota donates Lean Manufacturing to develop their suppliers include to review the general Lean thinking process and tools and study in depth the selected Lean manufacturing tools that are directly related with Toyota supplier development and to show the actual implementations base in the case of the supplier of Toyota in Philippines. Findings – The result of the case study shows how Toyota donates their Lean manufacturing (TPS) methods to the suppliers. There are several procedures and various tools for the Lean process. But one procedure within the process and only some of the Lean tools are suitable for supplier development. The case shows that all improvements (Kaizen) during the Lean implementation should be directly intertwined onsite (Genba) and just a small amount of the Lean tools is needed in real-world situations. In other words, the consultation of the Lean implementation might not require the full package of the Lean implementations. More importantly, the consultations of the Lean implementation without deeply understanding the onsite are useless. Research limitations/implications – The project for the Lean deployment for supplier implementation is targeted to understand the full procedure from the start to the end, but the case in this paper is only covering the setup phase. As the suppliers of Toyota, there are additional parts to be implemented (i.e. shipping management), but it is not covered in this paper. Originality/value – There are some researches about Lean implementation framework, and only few cases deal with the actual Lean implementations. But the case about the Lean implementation of supplier development initiation which aligned with the Toyota Company is unique.