Supply Chain View

I mentioned in a recent post that I’m still coming across a lot of confusion about the role of the customer in Lean.

So it was good to hear Sir Alan Jones, Chairman Emeritus of Toyota UK, making a really clear statement about this on BBC Radio 4′s The Bottom Line on Saturday (2nd June 2007) – listen to the Bottom Line 02/06/07.

Here’s what Sir Alan had to say:

This sounds very trite but please accept this as fact: you have to start with ‘who’s the customer?’ … for us the key is ‘what does the customer want?’ because the customer sets the quality standard … and that’s true in any business.

I’ve also mentioned recently that the people and cultural elements of Lean are widely misunderstood. This is what Sir Alan said about that:

Everybody is a ‘Member’ in Toyota – absolutely single status, there is no exception.

Finally, he reminded us about Toyota’s struggle in the UK in the late 90s: Toyota lost money 1997-99 due to a rapid unfavourable exchange rate move. Toyota’s costs were incurred in Sterling, whereas the majority of their sales were to the Eurozone. A lesser company might have relocated. Toyota stuck with its staff and suppliers – by 2000 they were back in balance. A useful reminder in the wake of Dell’s recent job-shedding and Honda CEO Takeo Fukui’s comments about the future of its Swindon plant being dependent on the UK adopting the Euro. (Honda has been signalling exchange-rate problems since at least 2001.)