Toyota discloses unprecedented details of F1 development

“On the other hand in most organisations people don’t really know what they’re going to do, or how they contribute. They just come in they pick up a file, they file a part that’s come out of an SLA machine, they give it to somebody else. When it really begins to work the people understand more purpose to their job, and somehow feel that their contribution is more recognised.

“I still think we’re not good enough in TMG yet, but once they get away from the ‘I’ve done it for 20 years and know everything about making F1 parts’ thing, they realise it’s not threatening, and they understand the gains, their job normally gets easier. And then the value of their job, in terms of internal self-fulfilment, becomes more positive.”

One early convert was Richard Cregan, General Manager of F1Operations. He was directly involved in the pit stop project, and has subsequently encouraged the wider use of TPS within the company.

“We try to implement as much of the TPS as possible,” says Cregan. “And we have improved the development time, we’ve improved the manufacturing time, and we have reduced the build time. A lot of that achievement is down to TPS programmes that we have in-house.

From the sound of it people often believe that TPS is only relevant to production based organisations. Personally I prefer to refer to it more as a Toyota philosophy system rather than a production system, whereby it helps you apply common sense in how you approach your whole planning process, your problem solving process, team work, everything.

The success of 2005 has helped all of those issues. You can feel it now in the company that there is a far better co-operation between departments, a far better understanding of each department’s problems, and this is the main reason why we’re able to bring the TF 06 out at such an early stage.” After the success of the initial projects, TPS is being incorporated into other areas of the company, and as more people understand it, so that process becomes easier.

“Now we’re expanding the knowledge and ability to the whole company,” says Chimura. “Not only production, but also other necessary functions. And also we’re developing people who can introduce this process by themselves, and who can also influence other members through their knowledge and experience.” Among them is Alain Longueville, a long time Cologne employee who now focuses on implementing TPS as a Senior Co-ordinator.

“Part of the power of the whole thing is that it shouldn’t be just a few experts that do it or explain it, but that 600 people understand it and come in every morning and say right, let’s see what we can improve. The power of that is enormous.”

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