Oobeya is Japanese for "big, open office" - and it's
Toyota's system for cutting costs and boosting quality. It's also
the secret behind the redesign of one of history's bestselling
cars.
Five years ago, Takeshi Yoshida landed a plum job: chief engineer
for the 2003
Toyota Corolla and its all-new five-door version, the
Matrix. The redesign of this small car involved big stakes: The
Corolla is one of the bestselling automobiles in history and the
heart of every other car Toyota makes. The Corolla, Yoshida says,
"carries all the Toyota DNA - whether it's a Camry or a Lexus - of
quality, reliability, and affordability."
Yoshida's assignment was tricky. He had to keep the price of the
new Corolla under $15,000 while reinvigorating the design and
adding high-tech options that would win over young drivers. Yoshida
responded with a new approach to planning, one that promotes more
innovation, lower costs, higher quality, and fewer last-minute
changes.
That new approach is captured in one word:
oobeya
(ooh-bay-yuh). It's Japanese for "big, open office." The business
translation? To change the way that you create a product, change
when, how, and with whom you share information. For Toyota,
oobeya means bringing together people from all parts of the
company every month for the two years before a car goes into
production."
Yoshida held his first Corolla
oobeya in early 2000. The
first order of business was to determine the cost of creating a
single Corolla. "Cost became our universal language," says Don
Esmond, senior vice president and a general manager at Toyota Motor
Sales U.S.A. "We had never looked at a car that way. Each of us had
a budget, and we were fine if we stayed under that."