ABSTRACT
Based on the four-year study by Stephen Spear and Kent Bowen, “Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System” (Harvard Business Review, Sept.–Oct., 1999), and my own observations when visiting NUMMI, Toyota’s Rule #1 is: “All work shall be highly specified as to content, sequence, timing, and outcome.” They clearly understand that if they do not do an outstanding job of designing and implementing a robust manufacturing system, there is no hope that the output from that system will be world class. The quality of the engineering that goes into the establishment of a manufacturing system, in large part, is going to determine the levels of productivity, quality, delivery reliability, cost effectiveness, investment control, and process cycle time obtained from that system.
