Problem Solving

By Al Norval,

Taichi Ohno, father of the Toyota Production System used to take new graduates to the shop floor and drawing a chalk circle on the floor.

The graduate would be told to stand in the circle and to observe and note down what he saw. The graduate would stand in the circle for hours. When Ohno returned he would check on what waste the graduate had observed. If the Graduate had not seen enough he would be asked to keep observing. Ohno was trying to teach his future engineers that the only way to truly understand what happens on the shop floor was to go there and take the time to understand what is really going on.

Later we came to know this as Genchi Genbutsu. Go to where the value is created and observe what is preventing the creation of value.

This is the basis of problem solving.