TPS: people, quality and synchronized flow

TPS: people, quality and synchronized flow

Begin with a customer need and the work that delivers it. Quality and flow must develop together: a faster stream that passes defects creates rework, while reliable processes still disappoint customers if work waits between them. People need a clear normal condition, permission to surface problems and support when they do. Choose one observable gap and improve it with the team. Follow the result through the whole route, rather than celebrating one machine or department. Use the drawing as a connected explanation of the system, not a mandatory sequence for installing tools.

Follow the method

1. Customer purpose
2. People and learning
3. Jidoka
4. Just-in-Time
5. Daily improvement

Connect the customer gap to two response paths

Fictional training case: Willow Valves promises 80 verified valve sets today. Machining celebrates 110 bodies, but assembly ships only 68 sets. Team leader Imani walks one order from release through inspection and assembly with operators. These supplied facts describe a teaching day; they do not establish long-term capability.

Follow the method

1. Customer
2. Quality
3. Supply
4. Machining
5. Trial

The faster machine did not improve delivery

Trace an order across departments, connect quality response to demand-paced flow, and choose an improvement that can be checked at the customer boundary.

Fictional training case: Willow Valves promises 80 verified valve sets today. Machining celebrates 110 bodies, but assembly ships only 68 sets. Team leader Imani walks one order from release through inspection and assembly with operators. These supplied facts describe a teaching day; they do not establish long-term capability.

Role: Value-stream leader working with machining, quality and assembly representatives.

Normal condition

The system provides the required verified sets at the promised time without overburdening people or producing unwanted stock.

The gap

Machine output rose while the required sets remained incomplete. Staff were encouraged to keep cutting even when the correct components were unavailable.

• A set needs a verified body and its matching seal kit.
• Quality and safe work remain necessary conditions; the illustration is not an authorization to change equipment.

1. Start at the customer boundary

   Imani records the shortfall as 80 minus 68 = 12 sets, keeping it separate from machined-body output. She asks which promised orders were affected and whether shipped sets met acceptance requirements.

   Why: A machine count is an intermediate measure. It cannot show whether the customer received a complete, suitable order.

   Evidence: Customer shortfall: 12 verified sets; not 12 bodies.

2. Follow both material and information

   The team follows a body and seal kit to assembly, then traces how consumption authorizes upstream replenishment. It marks the missing kit and the unresolved quality signal at their actual handoffs.

   Why: The route exposes dependence between components. A pile of one component cannot substitute for another or resolve uncertain quality.

   Evidence: Observed links: release, machining, quality status, kit availability, assembly and shipment.

3. Connect the two pillars

   The quality owner defines who responds to the bore alarm and what evidence permits release. The flow owner checks the kit replenishment signal and lead time. Operators help make both responses practical.

   Why: A quality stop needs a response, while synchronized flow needs eligible material. Pursuing flow by passing held work would undermine the system.

   Evidence: Two owned actions: alarm-response coverage and kit-signal trace; held bodies remain controlled.

4. Choose a bounded learning trial

   For one approved replenishment cycle, the team verifies kit availability before release and records alarm-response times, complete-set delivery and operator interruptions. It declines an extra machining batch unsupported by customer need.

   Why: The trial tests a cause-and-effect prediction across departments. It does not declare that both problems have already been solved.

   Evidence: Prediction: fewer incomplete releases and unresolved waits, with verified delivery improving and no hidden work.

5. Review the system result with the people

   At the agreed review, compare complete sets, holds and workload with the prediction. If the shortage persists, follow the new evidence rather than asking machining to raise its local target again.

   Why: Daily improvement develops the team’s ability to see and solve problems; the display is a means to learning, not a scorecard to blame operators.

   Evidence: Adopt, adapt or stop decision tied to order-level evidence and operator feedback.

The held bodies are released

Quality verifies all 12 held bodies, but seal kits are still absent.

Keep the kit issue open and do not claim 12 additional shipped sets.

Eligibility at one operation does not remove a separate missing-component dependency.

A release record exists; the shipment record remains 68 until complete sets are actually delivered.

Run a practice session

Materials

• Case sheet, order tokens and two colored arrow pens
• Blank end-to-end record; answer kept separate

1. Define the system outcome · 4 minutes

   Why can 110 bodies coexist with 68 shipped sets?

2. Trace one order in pairs · 8 minutes

   Which missing link prevents completion, and who can respond?

3. Run the office variant · 8 minutes

   What would an extra drafting shift actually change?

4. Challenge the trial · 5 minutes

   Which result would make you stop or adapt it?

Debrief

• Ask whether the held-body and seal-kit problems are independent.
• Invite an operator perspective before accepting a management target.

Trace the order aloud and write the customer-level prediction before checking the answer.

Transfer into the work

Owner: Value-stream owner with process representatives

Record: One order trace, abnormality-response record and trial prediction

Review: At the next daily review and after the agreed trial cycle

Evidence: Verified delivery, unresolved holds, kit readiness and operator feedback

Escalate cross-department response gaps; revise the trial with evidence rather than adding local output targets.