Business practices rooted in universal values can bring social and economic gains – Ban Ki-Moon | Secretary General of the United Nations
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Daily Archives: February 24, 2007
No satisfaction at Toyota
Charles Fishman writes about the relentless pursuit of improvement at Toyota taking the example of the work performed at its North American manufacturing plants. He provides one of the best writing on the Toyota Way.
As recently as 2004, a car body spent 10 hours in painting. Robots did much of the work, then as now, but they were supplied with paint through long hoses from storage tanks. “If we were painting a car red, before we could paint the next car white, we had to stop, flush the red paint out of the lines and the applicator tip, and reload the next color,” Buckner says. Georgetown literally threw away 30% of the pricey car paint it bought, cleaning it out of equipment and supply hoses when switching colors.
Now, each painting robot, eight per car, selects a paint cylinder the size of a large water bottle. A whirling disk at the end of the robot arm flings out a mist of top-coat paint. When a car is painted–it takes just seconds–the paint cartridge is set back down, and a freshly filled cartridge is selected by each robot.
No hoses need to be flushed. There is no cleaning between cars. All the paint is in the cartridges, which are refilled automatically from reservoirs. Cars don’t need to be batched by color–a system that saved paint but caused constant delays. Cars now spend 8 hours in paint, instead of 10. The paint shop at any moment holds 25% fewer cars than it used to. Wasted paint? Practically zero. What used to require 100 gallons now takes 70.
The benefits ripple out. Not only does Georgetown use less paint, it also buys less cleaning solvent and has dramatically reduced disposal costs for both. Together with new programming to make the robots paint more quickly, Buckner’s group has increased the efficiency of its car-wash-sized paint booths from 33 cars an hour to 50.
To achieve this kind of success you need a cultural change in the entire organization and not for example, only in the strategy department. The same goes of environmental ideas. And, there are many different management practices which are compatible with the ideas and principles of sustainability and these need to be incorporated into business strategy as it is aligned with Sustainability.
The Germinator
As reported yesterday on WorldisGreen.com, the Fast 50 was about the business and the environment. I mentioned yesterday about how the government is a major part of the solutions in this area, the Fast 50 has a web exclusive interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was revealing to read the interview and finding out that Schwarzenegger has studies business in college and using it all his life.
We get a lot more done when we create a great partnership to tackle problems. Whenever government does something alone, inevitably it fails. Why? Because even if we include Democrats and Republicans and Independents and say, “We’ve got the best brainpower,” that’s only the public sector. We need the best brainpower from the other half, the private sector. The important thing, a
s we’re creating a vision and setting guidelines, is that we’re working with business. We can say, “We want to reverse global warming and go after it from every angle without hurting business.” We want to show we’re friends and not the enemy.I come from a business background. I studied business in college, and I was always interested in the business side of everything. In all I’ve ever done–you know, bodybuilding, fitness, the movie business–I’ve always looked at it not only as the joy of doing the sport or the joy of acting but also, how do we make $1 into $10? How can we make a business out of it? Because everything has a business aspect.
What we are trying to do is show leadership in this area. If you look at the globe, you see California as a tiny box geographically speaking. But if you look at the power and influence of California, it immediately changes the picture. We have this huge name. This is what I want to benefit from to get the ball rolling all over the world.
First of all, you should never say, I can’t believe all the obstacles we’re facing. Every time there’s some new idea about anything, you will have people who despise any change. They love to hang on to the status quo. They will fight and they will take it to court. You have to expect it. The car companies have, you know, 25,000 lawyers, and this is what they do. We said, “Look guys, we understand, but eventually you’ve got to come our way, because it’s the best way to go.”
The bigger the obstacles, the more fun it is for me. Because anyone can overcome little obstacles. To overcome the big ones, it’s a huge challenge. If you have the personality that enjoys that, then you enjoy this job. For me, it’s inspirational to have big goals. You can have a tremendous impact on people’s lives. People say, “You can’t get everything done. There’s no way. It’s just too big. You’re one of these big action guys that likes big things, but everything can’t get done.” Well, so be it. But the only way to know if you can lift 500 pounds is if you put 500 pounds on the bar.
