Question

What does it mean when Toyota applies “countermeasures” to a problem in a process?

Answer 1

There are many incidences in the organization where the problems or issues which are encountered by the organization cannot be resolved at once thus in order to deal with these situations, a temporary or ad-hock measure is initiated by the organization so that the problem or issues can be neutralized from reoccurring in the process. This process is termed as countermeasures.

This type of philosophy is widely used in the execution of lean philosophy as it indicates that the implemented solution is not the best or the final one and there will always be some incidences where a more useful solution to the problem can be obtained. This is a clear indication that the current proposed solution is not the best one and there is always a chance of improvement.

The different countermeasures which are used in the Toyota Production System are:-

Unexpected breakdown or production level:- The accountability of the process reliability lies on the operator of the machine

Time-Consuming process:- The production of batch size more than one will be produced and remaining units will be stored to satisfy the demands of the customers

Change in customer demand:- Inventory of the finished products is maintained.