ABSTRACT
Collecting time data is a prerequisite to improving assembly operations, but it is more difficult in practice than one would expect. In the United States, the automobile industry is the only one routinely conducting time and motion studies. The most common pattern is for a car company to have a department of time specialists trained in a predetermined time standards method, usually Methods-Time-Measurement or MOST. Toyota’s stated motivation was not for Toyota Verification of Assembly Line (TVAL) to improve line balancing but to make assembly line work more attractive to a new generation of Japanese, fewer in number and more demanding in comfort than their elders. TVAL was used for the first time in the plant in established in Miyata, Kyushu in 1992. The resulting spliced video can then be used to communicate and review the proposed changes with affected assemblers and identify the changes needed to the layouts of both assembly stations.
