Giving Back: Toyota Helps Non-profits Improve Their Efficiency

Toyota is well known for its efficiency in assembling automobiles, and in a recent act of philanthropy Toyota has announced it will now donate its Toyota Production System expertise to help schools, non-profits, and hospitals. They plan to use their expertise to help these non-profit organizations improve their operations with efficiency and productivity, extend their reach in the community, and increase their impact on the community.

The Toyota Production System is based on a number of principles, including Waste reduction, encouraging communication between all workers, and allowing anybody who works on the production line to stop it at any time if there is an issue. Toyota feels that these basic principles are universal and should not be limited to the automotive industry.

Toyota plans to be working with up to 20 community organizations across the United States in the first year to help improve performance. The St. Bernard Project will be the first organization to receive help. The St. Bernard Project is a New Orleans recovery organization that employs war veterans, AmeriCorps members and volunteers to rebuild homes devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

The St. Bernard Project has rebuilt more than 380 homes in the New Orleans area and expects to learn from Toyota about improving their efficiency and productivity. With Toyotas help they hope to be able to accelerate their rebuilding efforts by 20%, train and employ three times as many war veterans and make more effective use their AmeriCorps members and civilian volunteers. These volunteers, employees, and members are dedicated each day to building and rebuilding housing for Katrina survivors. The St. Bernard Project CEO and Co-Founder, Zack Rosenburg said, In disaster recovery, time matters. We are confident that Toyotas expertise will help us not only expedite recovery efforts in New Orleans, but also allow us to replicate our vertically integrated rebuilding model in Joplin, MO., Tuscaloosa, AL., and other areas of the country devastated by recent natural disasters.

Toyotas initiative to support community organizations is being led by the Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC) was established in 1992 to give back to North America by sharing the Toyota Production System with Toyota-related suppliers and other companies nationwide. TSSC was focused mainly on making substantial improvements by increasing productivity, safety, and quality and decreasing costs, always with the focus on ensuring job retention.

In the past TSSC was sought after by some of Americas most successful for-profit companies; but TSSCs expertise is now being made more widely available for non-profits and other community organizations. Toyota recently announced that TSSC will now operate as a not-for-profit entity.

Yoshimi Inaba, President and COO of Toyota Motor North America, Inc., said: At Toyota, we judge our success not just on the cars we make, but also on how many people we help and communities we support. In todays challenging economy, non-profits across the U.S. are under increasing pressure to provide more services for more people with fewer resources. With TSSC and the Toyota Production System, Toyota hopes to help these organizations increase productivity and efficiency while decreasing costs and retaining jobs.