More on ‘Don’t just probe…ask the five ‘whys’
While researching material for the previous post, I came across this interview with Teruyuki Minoura, Toyota’s Managing Director of Global Purchasing. Part of this interview focused on the Toyota Production System (TPS) and the importance of asking ‘why?’ five times.
Ask yourself “Why?” five times
When an error occurs, the first thing that needs to be done is fix the error. Minoura recalls that Taiichi Ohno used to order them to ask the question “Why?” five times over because “that way you’ll find the root cause, and if you get rid of that it’ll never happen again.” However, Minoura emphasizes that on-the-spot observation rather than deduction is the only correct way to answer a “Why?” question. “I’m always struck that the five-why method doesn’t seem to be working as well as it should be because there’s been a lack of practical training. The reason is that they end up falling back on deduction. Yes, deduction. So when I ask them ‘Why?’ they reel off five causes as quick as a flash by deduction. Then I ask them five whys again for each of the causes they came up with. The result is that they start falling back on deduction again, and so many causes come back that you end up totally confused as to which of them is important.”
“Through real training,” Minoura says, “you’ll be able to discover dozens of problems and also get to their root causes. You’ll be able to make dozens of improvements. If you incorporate all the accumulated knowledge of root causes that you’ve got from always asking ‘Why? Why? Why? …’ into your equipment, you’re going to have something that no one else can come close to.
Here’s the takeaway: The last line of this is the most important. If you can incorporate all the accumulated knowledge of root causes that you’ve got from constantly asking ‘why’, you’re going to have something that no one else can come close to.
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