Hiroshi Nakagawa, Managing Director and CEO of Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM), has just finished surveying the paint shop at the company's facilities in Bidadi, 40 kilometres south of Bangalore. Though the paint shop manager had earlier sent him a report on the latest kaizen (continuous improvement) projects in his department, Nakagawa San was not quite convinced. He decided to personally visit the plant to see how a position change in the paint shop's equipment resulted in a fivesecond saving per vehicle.
This is Genchi Genbutsu, or on-site inspection, which is at the core of the Toyota Production System (TPS). Nakagawa, who has been a TPS practitioner for four decades, doesn't believe in seeing things on his computer screen -he prefers to go where the action is. "Can a computer smell? Genchi Genbutsu is very important because only on-site will your sensory organs be alert - smell, sound, vision," he says.
At the TKM headquarters in Bangalore's UB City, Deputy Managing Director and COO (Marketing & Commercial) Sandeep Singh, received myriad presentations on traits of customers prior to the launch of Etios in 2010. But he decided to personally visit two dealerships to gauge the situation on the ground.
NAME - AMIT KUMAR SINGH
PGDM -2ND SEM
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