Q4. What were some of
the critical success factors in getting TOC into GM?
Well, over the years,
Eli has spent a lot of time with GM management, trying to get them to
understand the basics. That helped. We also had a lot of top executives, like
Gary Cowger, Tom LaSorda, Don Hackworth and Larry Burns, who got it, and
supported it. And we had C-Thru (which
later became C-More) for finding bottlenecks. Methods described in The Goal for finding bottlenecks didn’t
apply well to automobile manufacturing. You couldn’t just look for inventory, since SUV’s took up a lot of
space. Inventory on the production line
is minimal, especially after lean methods like kanban had been installed. GM Research’s development of this tool was a
big factor.
Of course, training was
a big part of the solution. To overcome
logical objections to TIP, we used developed a lot of simulation games. Having a “flight simulator” to validate
concepts and work through examples was very valuable, and added an element of
fun to the class. The using simulation
(and C-More) for trying out fixes ahead of time was valuable – it allowed
middle mangers to focus on the problems and solutions that had the most impact.
Finally, we try to make
sure we talked in terms of dollar impact. Gaining a half a job an hour might not seem to be a big deal. But taking the Throughput Dollars (Selling
Price – Total Variable Cost) times the number of hours works in a year, ending
up being a lot of money, even when divided in half. That number was a shocker for many when they
first got involved with TIP.
Being successful in
increasing profitability allow us to create quite a team as well. People in my group spend a lot of time and
effort making it successful. They, at
least, knew they were doing the right thing, but they all faced adversity and
conflict. None of us thought we had the
easiest job in GM, but a few of us thought we had the best. I consider myself
fortunate to have led such a great team.
