Toyota - AllAboutLean.com

Denso’s Way to Visualize BIG Data 3: Additional Quality Control Tools

November 4, 2025November 4, 2025 by Christoph Roser

In my last two posts, I talked a lot about the free Analysis Platform application, used by Denso and others to dig deeper into big data to understand what exaltiert is happening on your shop floor. I showed you the Digital Native Seven Quality Control Tools (DN7 or DN7QC7). But beyond these seven tools, there are a few more included in the application, which I also would like to show you briefly here.

And, on top of that, I will also briefly show you Seven New Quality Control Tools that are not really part of the application, but aim to dig deeper into problems that are hard to quantify, and many of these tools are more based on relations than on data.

Denso’s Way to Visualize BIG Data 2: The Digital Native Seven Quality Control Tools

October 31, 2025October 28, 2025 by Christoph Roser

In my last post, I started to talk about the free Analysis Platform application used by Denso and others (especially in Japan) to tackle big data. In this post I will go into much more detail on what Denso calls the Digital Native Seven Quality Control Tools (DN7 or DN7QC7). These data analysis tools go way beyond the usual things you can do in Excel, and are designed to tackle big data analysis for industry 4.0. Beyond that, this application also includes more tools, which I will also show briefly in my next post.

Denso’s Way to Visualize BIG Data 1: The Analysis Platform Application

October 31, 2025October 21, 2025 by Christoph Roser

A lot of problem solving is about understanding the current situation. Ideally this includes data. There are a couple of ways to analyze data. Denso uses seven traditional ways of analyzing data, which you are all familiar with. However, they expanded these tools with the goal to analyze big data. They call it the Digital Native Seven Quality Control Tools (DN7 or DN7QC7) …and of course I will share this with you. Even better, there is a freely available tool “Analysis Platform” that does these analyses for you (albeit it is not that easy to use).

Mendomi: The Well-Being of Japanese Employees

October 19, 2025September 16, 2025 by Christoph Roser

In this blog post I would like to introduce another Japanese term used in industry: Mendomi. Used at Toyota and also other Japanese firms, it means to take care of your employees. And, Toyota makes a good effort on this, albeit not flawlessly. Let’s dive deeper on what mendomi means (but don’t expect to find a new religion in there…).

Fluctuations on Continuously Moving Assembly Lines 3—The Value of Team Leaders

August 21, 2025April 8, 2025 by Christoph Roser

In my last two posts I described the impact of fluctuations on the duration of the work on a continuously moving assembly line. One key tool for reducing fluctuations on Toyota assembly lines is the team leader, the frontline support for operators. Team leaders reduce fluctuations in general by taking over irregular tasks like delivering material, taking away trash, and explaining situations to a manager. They also reduce especially long fluctuations by supporting the operators in their own work if there are problems, thus reducing stops of the line. This post will look in more detail at the beneficial effects of team leaders on a moving assembly line.

Toyota Change Point Management: Henkaten

November 4, 2025October 29, 2024 by Christoph Roser

Henkaten is an approach by Toyota to deal with changes in their manufacturing system. It is one of the lesser-known words of the lean vocabulary. Often translated as “change point,” it is about managing a change. However, there is no magic behind yet another Japanese word. It is all just the basics like most methods in lean manufacturing: attention to details, standards, and visual management. Let me show you!

Lessons Learned from the Toyota KPI Dashboard for Your Own Dashboard

August 21, 2025November 14, 2023 by Christoph Roser

In my series of posts on the Toyota KPI dashboard I went into detail about the different sections and KPIs. These dashboards work well fro Toyota. However, this does not mean that they automatically work well for you too. Chances are, you are not making cars. Even if you are, your relevant KPI information may be different from Toyota’s. Let’s have a look…

The Toyota KPI Dashboard—Production Plan

August 21, 2025November 7, 2023 by Christoph Roser

In my previous posts I went into great detail through all the categories of the Toyota KPI dashboard: safety, quality, productivity, and cost. I also explained the additional section on HR development, albeit this may not really be KPI in the normal sense. However, the dashboard often contains even more: a section with the monthly production plan, a section for the allocation of the operator, and different A3s for improvement. Lets dig deeper: