1, "For humanity, for society and for the earth"
As early as 1930, after Akio Toyoda died, his legacy was summarized into five articles, which were handed down as the "Toyota Program":
Work with one heart and one mind to realize industry serving the country.
Committed to research and creation, ahead of the times.
Try to avoid flashy, pursue enrichment and vigorous.
Carry forward warm friendship and build a beautiful family.
Respect the Buddha's thoughts, daily life, and repay good with good.
These projects later became the content of Toyota's social training and the basis of Toyota's business philosophy, and played a great role as the spiritual pillar of employees. The times are progressing, and Toyota operators are constantly changing. However, Akio Toyoda's thought on career has not changed because of this, and he is still a powerful pillar of Toyota spirit.
Today, let's take a look at Toyota's business philosophy described in new language:
A. Abide by internal and external laws, regulations and spirit, carry out open and fair corporate activities, and strive to become a corporate citizen trusted by the international community.
B, respect the culture and habits of countries and regions, carry out enterprise activities according to local conditions, and make contributions to local economic and social development.
C, with the mission of providing safe and environmentally-friendly commodities, make full use of various enterprise activities and work wholeheartedly to maintain a good global environment and build a prosperous and beautiful society.
D. Actively engage in the research and development of the most advanced technologies in various fields, and provide the most attractive products and high-quality services to meet customers and demands all over the world.
E create an enterprise tradition based on mutual dependence and shared responsibility between employers and employees, which can give full play to individual creativity and collective advantages.
F, carry out global innovative business activities to coordinate the growth of enterprises and society.
G, based on fair trade relations, committed to mutual research, * * * with the creation, in order to achieve long-term stable development, coexistence and mutual benefit.
In Toyota, there is a simple and clear expression of business philosophy: for mankind, for society and for the earth.
In the early 1990s, Toyota Hideki, then president of Toyota's no-sale campaign, and Toyoda Shoichiro, then president of Toyota, promised the world: "Our company has carried out various activities since its establishment with the basic concept of creating a better society through automobiles. In the future, while implementing the concept of customer first, we will contribute to a better life by providing products that reflect the changes of the times in time. "
"The concept of customer first is deeply rooted in the hearts of Toyota operators and all employees. As early as the early days of Toyota's venture, the first article of Akio Toyoda's famous "five-point policy" clearly pointed out: "The ultimate goal is the public! "For decades, Toyota has been praised by consumers all over the world for its high quality, low price and energy saving, which is inseparable from the company's unswerving implementation of the goal of' popularization'. They are "tailor-made" for all consumers and make various efforts to meet the needs of customers. In the quality management of automobiles, Toyota relies on world-class and unique quality management to ensure the quality of every Toyota car. They don't allow defective cars to enter the market. When Lexus was first listed in the United States, the new car market started very smoothly. The sales price is much lower than that of competitor Mercedes-Benz, and the reporters of automobile magazine are amazed at the quality of Lexus. The editor-in-chief of a car magazine in Detroit secretly plans to write something for Lexus, because he thinks its performance is perfect and Lexus has no defects or deficiencies. However, these compliments are somewhat inaccurate. Only a few weeks after the new car went on the market, it was found that there was something wrong with the rear wheel brakes. This problem is not too serious and can be solved during routine maintenance. But Dongxiang Xingtai, who is in charge of sales, insisted on taking the car back. The owner was told that if he agreed, Toyota would send someone to drive the car away and repair it overnight. The next day, the owners found that the overhauled car had just been cleaned and the fuel tank was full of gasoline. All the local news media took the initiative to report the incident and praised the recycling of cars as a good thing. Car owners also think that Toyota's efficiency is commendable. This kind of recall maintenance service has never existed before in the United States, but Toyota has established a sales network and after-sales service system abroad, which can quickly meet customers' hopes and requirements. At the exit of Toyota's assembly line, people will see the eye-catching slogan: "Work hard with the customer first consciousness!" The essence of Masataro, president of Toyota Motor Sales Co., Ltd.' s famous "sales theory" is "customer first, sales second, manufacturing third". Toyota has won the highest reputation in the world by relying on the concepts of "customer first" and "for humanity".
In Toyota's business philosophy, the idea of "for the society" has also been fully reflected. Long before Toyota entered the automobile manufacturing industry, Akio Toyoda earnestly warned Ichiro Toyoda: "I have done my best to make looms for the country. You must build a car to serve the country! " The heart of industry serving the country is amazing.
In the early 1970s, at the peak of Japan's economic development, all sectors of society strongly demanded that large enterprises should take social responsibilities while promoting Japan's economic development. At this time, Toyota Yingzhi also thought that Toyota should have an impact on Japanese society and culture in addition to pure industrial production, so Toyota Consortium was established in June of 1974+00. Toyota Yingzhi is the chairman of the Toyota consortium, the Japanese Prime Minister's Office is the supervisor, and Toyota contributes 3.3 billion yen. Its purpose is to repay the society and sponsor or invest regardless of profit or loss. In addition to sponsoring some long-term research projects in China, it also sponsors some overseas projects. For example, it is agreed with the Ford Foundation to provide scholarships for Japanese students in a specific period of time. This plan continued until 1983. At the same time, the Rockefeller Foundation, an American consortium, launched a research on "Sponsoring the Preservation of Traditional Buildings in Southeast Asia" midway, and Toyota took over the sponsorship. By 1984, the foundation of Toyota consortium had reached110 billion yen, which was among the best among private consortia and the most active, and had a great influence on Japanese society and culture.
With the increasing number of cars in the world year by year, automobile exhaust emission has become a major public hazard leading to the deterioration of the earth's atmospheric environment. Saving the limited energy on the earth is also one of the main problems facing mankind. In order to protect the environment, Toyota is constantly improving its engine and trying to reduce air pollution caused by exhaust gas. At the same time, as a new energy source, we will actively promote the development and research of natural gas vehicles, methanol vehicles, electric vehicles and solar vehicles. 1At the end of 1995, Toyota set the goal of developing electric gasoline dual-purpose vehicles, which was1the epoch-making new car "Prius" unveiled at the Tokyo Motor Show in June 1997. People spoke highly of the effectiveness of the Prius electric gasoline system and its full consideration of environmental problems. After listening to Toyota's efforts in environmental countermeasures, users praised: "Toyota has made great efforts and contributions to our planet and human beings."
2. People-oriented
Toyota's operators deeply understand the concept that "people are wealth that creates wealth". Toyota has a well-known slogan: "Fengnan should not only build cars, but also educate people." Ishida, the third president of the company, said: "The most important thing for any enterprise to achieve greater development is to cultivate Toyota people who actively use their brains and work hard for the enterprise." Tomoko Yamamoto, vice president of Toyota Motor Sales Co., Ltd. also said: "An enterprise is composed of three elements: people, money and things. First, people, people are property. Cultivating outstanding people is to increase the assets of enterprises. So no matter who you are, you must work hard to cultivate people. "
In order to cultivate pioneering talents of Toyota, Toyota Yingzhi founded Toyota University of Technology in April 198 1. In Toyota, like all enterprises, a group of employees are very capable and want to go to college, but they can't continue to go to college for various reasons. Although enterprises can provide scholarships and on-the-job training to help these people complete their studies, school education in society pays too much attention to "teaching" and ignores "educating people". Toyota Hideki thinks that running a university by himself is a good way to train people. On the basis of self-built Toyota University of Technology, 1984 established the Toyota University of Technology College, which gave Toyota a place to train senior talents.
In the normal production and operation activities, Fengnan Company holds various lectures on problem solving, consultants and coaches all the year round to train foremen, organizes employees to participate in the "Shipping School (Navigation University)" facing Hong Kong or Taiwan Province Province, and organizes study tours with site supervisors in the United States or Europe. Through a series of educational forms, the quality of ordinary employees will be continuously improved.
1960, Toyota Zigong, Toyota Automatic Loom Factory, Denso Japan, Aichi Seiki, Aichi Iron and Steel, Toyota Gong Ji, Toyota Tsusho and other enterprises in the Toyota Group jointly established the Toyota Central Research Institute, specializing in technology development and invention. 1982, Toyota established an international research institute to conduct forward-looking strategic research related to Toyota industry from the perspectives of world politics, economy and social culture. Toyota's research institutions have gathered a large number of economic and technical talents, and also trained a number of senior reserve talents, which has played a great role in Toyota's development.
In the whole management process, Toyota always embodies the idea of "people-oriented" everywhere. In addition to promoting employees to form a cohesive force of "family concept" and "single-minded", employees are also trained to be "all-rounders" with various skills through "bottom-up decision-making" to create an "equal opportunity" working environment for each employee.
"Respecting personality" and advocating "independent management" are a major feature of Toyota management. They improve morale by "respecting personality", so as to glow and tap the enthusiasm and initiative of every employee, improve production efficiency and ensure product quality. Toyota shows respect for the personality of all employees by designing reasonable production processes, improving the working environment of employees, improving the safety performance of equipment, improving the automation of production lines and establishing smooth communication channels from top to bottom. They know how to make employees understand the meaning of their work and fully realize their satisfaction with their work and life value.
The characteristic of Toyota's management is group management, so people realize that managers are one of the colleagues who "give the purpose of their work to their colleagues", and each subordinate carries out his own "independent management". They never engage in the management mode of "candy plus whip" in western European enterprises, but use it as a means to stimulate employees' enthusiasm rather than this method, relying on employees' "shame and self-esteem" and their self-motivation and competitiveness in their work.
In Toyota, continuous QC group activities and incentive-suggestion system are the means and methods to fully embody the "self-management" of employees.
QC group activities and incentives-the purpose and significance of the suggestion system, such as the slogan "Good product, good idea" hanging above the assembly line, which means to produce good products and come up with good ideas; Furthermore, only by constantly coming up with good ideas can we produce better products.
The QC team of Toyota Company is a mass organization for employees to "manage themselves". It is directly related to the formal production and management organization of the operation or workplace. All employees participate in a QC group, including indirect departments, and more than 67,000 employees participate in thousands of QC groups to independently and continuously carry out activities such as quality, cost reduction, equipment preservation, safety protection, industrial pollution elimination and alternative energy research.
Closely related to QC group activities is the incentive-suggestion system, which is called "proposal system" in Guo Feng company. The proposal system has been in Toyota for 50 years. 1June, 950, Toyota Yingzhi visited Ford, introduced Ford's "proposal system" into Toyota, and gradually improved it, forming a "proposal system" with Japanese characteristics that is widely and deeply developed by Toyota at present. According to statistics, the number of rationalization suggestions made by Toyota in 1986 is 2,648,740, with an average of 47 suggestions per person. The employee participation rate is 95% and the adoption rate is 96%. Since 1989, according to the rationalization suggestions put forward by employees, the production cost has been reduced by hundreds of millions of dollars, of which 1997 alone has been reduced by 72 million dollars. It can be seen that rationalization proposal activities have played an important role in Toyota's operation and management, resulting in huge economic benefits.
The results of QC team and the rational suggestions adopted will be rewarded by the company according to its economic benefits. 1988, Toyota's rationalization proposal was awarded more than 300 million yen. By participating in the company management, employees pay more attention to the value of life and the satisfaction recognized by the company and colleagues, which makes employees feel that they are a member of the operator and have a sense of loyalty and belonging to the company. The concept of "people-oriented" has been fully reflected here.
4. Endless "improvement"
When people walk into Toyota's office or production site, they will hear one of the most popular and commonly used words-"Kaizan".
Toyota Synthetic President Masao has a motto, which is "improve, improve, and improve again". This sentence tells the true meaning of Toyota management. It can be said that the gestation and development of Toyota's famous production mode, the optimization of production technical means and the improvement of the company's economic benefits all stem from a wide range of "improvement" activities.
All kinds of unreasonable phenomena exist in all workplaces and production sites. No matter what kind of industry the site belongs to, no matter whether the scale of the site is large or small, no matter whether the means of production on the site are advanced or backward, there are all kinds of unreasonable phenomena and problems to be solved. However, with the development of science and technology, the improvement of personnel quality and the progress of mechanization, automation and informatization, unreasonable phenomena are becoming less and less. From another point of view, the old unreasonable phenomena have been solved and new unreasonable phenomena have emerged. It is precisely by grasping the key of "improvement" that Toyota can make enterprises climb to a new height step by step on the road of competitive operation.
Toyota's "improvement" activities have a long tradition. It is because of his continuous improvement of consciousness that Akio Toyoda transformed the original wooden hand loom into a steam-driven loom with a mixed structure of iron and wood. Further improvement has been made, and an automatic loom with human intelligence and automatic parking has been successfully developed. When Taiichi Ono was transferred from Toyota Textile to Toyota Motor Industry Corporation in 1943, he saw that in the automobile factory, a lathe worker was only responsible for one lathe, a milling worker was only responsible for one milling machine, and a driller was only responsible for one powerful drilling machine. In the weaving factory, a female worker was responsible for 20 to 30 looms, and the idea of improving the production mode of the automobile factory sprouted. The famous "multi-process operation method" and "automobile assembly operation" were created in Miyata Factory of Toyota Kyushu Company in Fukuoka Prefecture, and the traditional automobile assembly line was unimaginably improved: the production line changed the previous conveyor belt mode and introduced a mobile platform with an elevator. Workers can sit on the platform and do their own work, and the spare parts boxes next to them also move as if they were in a relatively static state. This kind of movable platform also combines the working posture of human height, and designs a platform car that can move up and down, which relieves the discomfort and fatigue of workers when they are working in semi-squatting. All this is the result of continuous improvement. Toyota's "improvement" not only never stops in our company, but also goes abroad and spreads overseas. In NUMMI, a joint venture between Toyota Motor Corporation and American General Motors Corporation, "Kaizan" (the pronunciation of the word "improvement" in Japanese) has become the daily language of local American employees. At Toyota Kentucky Automobile Manufacturing Company, one day, a shift worker reported to the then president, Akio Fujio, that he had improved the ancient oriental tableware-chopsticks. As he spoke, the inventor took out his masterpiece, a pair of chopsticks mounted on a hanger, which is said to be as convenient as tweezers for holding vegetables. Zhang Fushi smiled and said, "Well, this is an improvement."
"Improvement" has no profound theoretical system, so there is no need for complicated methods and means. What it secretly needs is serious and realistic professionalism, meticulous style and endless enterprising consciousness.
There are two ways to make the "improvement" activities achieve lasting results, namely, the QC group mentioned above and the rationalization proposal activities. Comparing Toyota's "improvement" activities with similar activities in Europe and America, we will find that there are essential differences between them. The most prominent point is that in Toyota, no matter who puts forward the improvement plan, whether it is the minister, the section chief, the foreman or the operator, they must take the responsibility for this improvement, be responsible for completing it and get the corresponding reward. Enterprises in Europe and the United States generally put forward plans by managers or technicians, and then guide workers to implement them. Planning and execution are often "two skins", so the effect is completely different from that of Toyota. Therefore, some Japanese scholars said: "European and American countries have not improved."
Walking into Toyota's production site, you can see the striking "improvement kanban" everywhere. Kanban is divided into two parts On the one hand, it is the situation before improvement, on the other hand, it is the situation after improvement. The main body of improvement, the key points of improvement, the measures of improvement, the effect after improvement, the economic benefits generated by the effect, the names of the improvement undertakers and the awards obtained are all written on billboards and announced to the public. In addition, "improved kanban" has been quickly replaced. A few days after an improvement result was announced, the new improvement result was replaced, which shows the enthusiasm of Toyota employees to participate in the improvement.