I have been very busy helping establish our new Japanese subsidiary. On a recent trip to Tokyo, I got to thinking again about a favourite topic of mine: applying industrial production methods to information development. What would best practice in Japanese production methods look like if applied to creating product information? The Japanese are famous for having made a science out of observing American companies in the 50s; they developed a formal, repeatable model for ensuring that the production of anything from automobiles to zip fasteners was optimally efficient and reliable – without compromising quality. These methods enabled Toyota to become the biggest automotive company in the world (and YKK the biggest zip manufacturer). The quality challenges that Toyota are now facing are seen as a result of the company failing to live up to its own principles. There is no doubt that these deeply entrenched principles are still part of what makes Japan a technological powerhouse. So how do these principles apply to information development?
Buy-In
According to the principle of nemawashi (根回し) (“laying the groundwork, building consensus”), it’s critical to agree what your standards are. For product information this usually means discussing, agreeing, and then publishing writing standards for all to see. IBM and other major companies even sell theirs. A crucial part of any production project is the buhinhyou (部品表), the bill of materials: this equates with setting the technical terminology (basically, the naming of things). Agreeing your terminology is an indispensible part of setting information standards.
Deploy
Once you have set your standards you have to apply them. Quality management comes in two flavours: quality assurance and quality control. In the Japanese model, quality assurance is all about poka-yoke (ポカヨケ), meaning to avoid (yokeru) inadvertent errors (poka) and jidoka (自働化) (“automation with human intelligence”). Both of these concepts are about detecting errors and fixing them as they occur – not after the fact. In information quality terms this means giving feedback on issues as soon as information is created.
Control
In terms of quality control, the key issue is to have the process set up to prevent poor quality from getting through. The concept of andon (行灯) (“warning sign”) means giving a clear (unmissable) signal when quality issues arise. Defining quality gates for your information as goes through the production process is a crucial part of information quality (IQ) management. A second part of this is genchi genbutsu (現地現物) (“go and see for yourself”) means that management should go and look at issues for themselves rather than relying on second-hand accounts. In terms of an IQ strategy, this means that metrics and reporting have to offer not just numbers but the ability for management to drill down to the reasons for the numbers – in other words, to show the actual errors themselves.
Run and Optimize
The goal of all this is to achieve heijunka (平準化) (“production smoothing”) – to produce goods (or in our case, information) at a constant rate (avoiding mura (斑) and muri (無理) two kinds of waste). A smooth production process means that processes become more predictable and subsequent processes, such as translation in the case of information development, can also be made more efficient and predictable.
All this leads to kaizen (改善) (“continuous improvement”), by which the organization learns to improve itself over time to constantly get better.
What can you expect if you apply these concepts to information development? Well, the same things that the Japanese expect from their production lines:
- Buy-in from the whole organization; since everyone has had their say in setting [information] standards
- Predictable, smooth processes for information development
- Control of costs and resources in creating and disseminating product information
- The ability to run and optimize processes to continue to achieve shorter time to market
Applied successfully we know that “the Japanese Way” provides a huge competitive advantage in a fast-changing world where transparent, controllable processes are crucial.
Some good points for all of us who admire “the Japanese way” Andrew. They should be taught in school at an early age. Manuel
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