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What makes you think Tesla doesn't fundamentally grasp it? This anecdote? The plural of anecdote is not data. Your wikipedia link on the Toyota Production Syst

What makes you think Tesla doesn't fundamentally grasp it? This anecdote? The plural of anecdote is not data. Your wikipedia link on the Toyota Production System says it was developed between 1948 and 1975. So it look 27 years to develop. Working for a startup myself, I'm very aware of Kanban and other TPS-inspired work processes. Sometimes in startup-hair-on-fire-mode that all goes out the window and I think that's where Tesla is in company maturity right now.

muglug 9y ago
Tesla has been designing and producing road-worthy vehicles for 14 years. If they're in startup-hair-on-fire mode right now, something is very wrong.
- carlivar 9y ago
  Which new automaker of the past 40 years do you compare them to as far as measuring what is wrong?
  - majormajor 9y ago
    Hyundai turned their quality around pretty massively in 10 to 20 years after entering the US market. So is our new bar for Tesla "do they run out of money before they can replicate what Hyundai did"? Doesn't seem like shooting for the stars. Seems like blind replication isn't the answer alone ( http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207540701223493?src=recsys&journalCode=tprs20#_i5 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207540701223493... ), which is unsurprising, but Tesla's sales targets and their current production line process as-reported seem at odds. This stuff is very well-studied and making basic errors seems like a problem of hubris coming from a software industry that's in a much less mature state.
csours 9y ago
Every large, successful automotive manufacturer uses some flavor of TPS.
Hypx 9y ago
It's pretty self-evident if you read the next two paragraphs: > (Ironically, the Fremont plant is prominently featured in “The Machine…” as the locus of the ultimately failed GM-Toyota cooperation.) > As I watched Tesla’s messy, hiccuping line, with workers dashing in to fix faulty parts in place, my mind travelled back to the Honda plant I had visited years ago in Marysville, Ohio. Clean, calm, everything moved smoothly. I was so shocked by the contrast that I imprudently voiced my concern. That didn’t go over well with my fellow Tesla owners. I was a killjoy, I was calling their choice into question. So we have an actual first-hand description of the differences between Tesla's and Toyota/Honda's understanding of lean manufacturing. Even in the very same building in fact. And I'm pretty sure the author is describing the production of Model S or X, not the new Model 3. Since those cars have been in production for a while now, there's no way they wouldn't have implemented something like the lean manufacturing system unless they simply don't understand it.
- carlivar 9y ago
  I really find it hard to believe they don't understand the TPS. Sure. Maybe. I don't know. It seems more likely to me their "goal" (pun intended for those readers of "The Goal") is the TPS but their particular supply chain may not currently allow for it.
  - majormajor 9y ago
    So even that interpretation leaves me wondering "why didn't they take that into account earlier"? Do the fancy computer-control-all-the-things people have too much influence compared to the boring practicalities of things like "how will we build this?" Fundamentally my question on Tesla is now: if you're priced as a "we have a fundamentally better way of doing things that will disrupt the industry" company, but the core process in your business is still fundamentally inferior, will you have a long enough runway? I used to be a bear on Tesla for grumpy "I don't like the decisions and design choices they make" reasons, but now the business itself seems a bit underdeveloped.
    - carlivar 9y ago
majormajor 9y ago
If they're still in hair on fire mode after having many years and multiple previous models to practice on before the Model 3, that's the part that makes me think they don't grasp it. Elon's software background, plus SpaceX which is fundamentally a very different kind of manufacturing, probably works against him here. Software startups essentially hate process (for often-good reasons) and view process as mostly a thing you put into place out of necessity after you've successfully navigated the growth phase. The stories from their production floor are the single most worrying thing that's come out about Tesla - bad vendor quality control, overengineering a la the Model X, all those other things are comparatively simple to grasp, learn from, and overcome. Why wasn't "learn how to mass-manufacture reliably" a much earlier goal? Just because a system took 27 years to develop doesn't mean it takes 27 years to learn.
wpietri 9y ago
> Sometimes in startup-hair-on-fire-mode that all goes out the window If that's how you use it, then you also don't grasp it. The point of a process is that it supports you in hard times. (In easy times, any process will do.) In my view, the essence of Lean is patient incremental gain. Giving in to panic is throwing all its benefits away, and creating both immediate and long-term problems for yourself. A good counterexample to your theory is Toyota itself. They created the hybrid category from scratch. They are still the market leader. They started by building one. They moved on to a small annual production volume. As they worked out the kinks, they sold more and more, eventually starting to sell in the US. As far as I can tell, at no point did they enter "hair-on-fire mode".
- carlivar 9y ago
  Hmm, good point. I agree with you about patient incremental gain. I wish my boss and other leaders did. Maybe I also work for an Elon Musk, come to think of it. And yet, I'm still not sure my boss and others don't _understand_ lean manufacturing and its related disciplines. They just seem to pick and choose when they want to apply it. I was recently reading about Jeff Bezos and his "Day 1" mantra as well... perhaps the question is whether that sort of thing can apply to cars.
- brianwawok 9y ago
  Toyota also had profits of billions of dollars from other lines to back their Hybrid model. Tesla is basically a really big startup, and has nowhere near the cash reserve to take 6 years to bring the model 3 to market. It it basically get it out NOW, or fold. In 6 years Ford etc. etc. already has a model 3 equivalent for sale and knows how to manufacture. You can't play it so safe in an established market if you want to dive in.
  - wpietri 9y ago
    I don't think it works like that. "Getting it out now" means building a very reliable, high-volume production line. If you rush that, you get an unreliable production line, which unless you just ship garbage, will be a low-volume production line or a very expensive production line. Or both. I understand why "hair-on-fire mode" feels right. One's internal feelings of urgency are matched by dramatic action. The chaos and excitement of red alert gives nobody time for contemplation and lets everyone ignore the uncomfortable feelings that might come from that. But people in that mode make terrible choices, drastically undervaluing the long term. In software, it's especially easy for us. Our products are rarely life critical, people are used to them being flaky, and we can fix things later by shipping new versions. None of these is true about cars. People used to ship garbage anyhow, which is why the US car market in the 70s and 80s was plagued with problems. And why Toyota and others could make such inroads. Tesla should absolutely be taking risks, especially product feature and marketing risks. But taking quality and productivity risks in hopes that they can somehow make it up later strikes me as a terrible idea.
Cthulhu_ 9y ago
Tesla isn't a startup though, they've been building cars for ten+ years and have a lot of smart people working for them that could've looked to wikipedia to figure out how the other car manufacturers manage to be efficient.
- rphlx 9y ago
  I really doubt the problem is "nobody there understands the theory". More likely, as a large public company with considerable presales and aggressive public commitments, the ops people are probably being pressured to "just push a few more cars through manually today, while trying to improve the automation". It's easy to armchair-COO the situation and claim that you would halt the entire line (or problematic parts of it) for 30+ days unless/until every step is at 90%+ yield, but if Musk or the Board is saying no to that, you are basically trapped in a suboptimal local maximum that you know how to escape, but are socially unable to.

muglug 9y ago

Tesla has been designing and producing road-worthy vehicles for 14 years. If they're in startup-hair-on-fire mode right now, something is very wrong.

carlivar 9y ago
Which new automaker of the past 40 years do you compare them to as far as measuring what is wrong?
- majormajor 9y ago
  Hyundai turned their quality around pretty massively in 10 to 20 years after entering the US market. So is our new bar for Tesla "do they run out of money before they can replicate what Hyundai did"? Doesn't seem like shooting for the stars. Seems like blind replication isn't the answer alone ( http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207540701223493?src=recsys&journalCode=tprs20#_i5 http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00207540701223493... ), which is unsurprising, but Tesla's sales targets and their current production line process as-reported seem at odds. This stuff is very well-studied and making basic errors seems like a problem of hubris coming from a software industry that's in a much less mature state.

csours 9y ago

Every large, successful automotive manufacturer uses some flavor of TPS.

Hypx 9y ago

It's pretty self-evident if you read the next two paragraphs: > (Ironically, the Fremont plant is prominently featured in “The Machine…” as the locus of the ultimately failed GM-Toyota cooperation.) > As I watched Tesla’s messy, hiccuping line, with workers dashing in to fix faulty parts in place, my mind travelled back to the Honda plant I had visited years ago in Marysville, Ohio. Clean, calm, everything moved smoothly. I was so shocked by the contrast that I imprudently voiced my concern. That didn’t go over well with my fellow Tesla owners. I was a killjoy, I was calling their choice into question. So we have an actual first-hand description of the differences between Tesla's and Toyota/Honda's understanding of lean manufacturing. Even in the very same building in fact. And I'm pretty sure the author is describing the production of Model S or X, not the new Model 3. Since those cars have been in production for a while now, there's no way they wouldn't have implemented something like the lean manufacturing system unless they simply don't understand it.

carlivar 9y ago
I really find it hard to believe they don't understand the TPS. Sure. Maybe. I don't know. It seems more likely to me their "goal" (pun intended for those readers of "The Goal") is the TPS but their particular supply chain may not currently allow for it.
- majormajor 9y ago
  So even that interpretation leaves me wondering "why didn't they take that into account earlier"? Do the fancy computer-control-all-the-things people have too much influence compared to the boring practicalities of things like "how will we build this?" Fundamentally my question on Tesla is now: if you're priced as a "we have a fundamentally better way of doing things that will disrupt the industry" company, but the core process in your business is still fundamentally inferior, will you have a long enough runway? I used to be a bear on Tesla for grumpy "I don't like the decisions and design choices they make" reasons, but now the business itself seems a bit underdeveloped.
  - carlivar 9y ago

majormajor 9y ago

If they're still in hair on fire mode after having many years and multiple previous models to practice on before the Model 3, that's the part that makes me think they don't grasp it. Elon's software background, plus SpaceX which is fundamentally a very different kind of manufacturing, probably works against him here. Software startups essentially hate process (for often-good reasons) and view process as mostly a thing you put into place out of necessity after you've successfully navigated the growth phase. The stories from their production floor are the single most worrying thing that's come out about Tesla - bad vendor quality control, overengineering a la the Model X, all those other things are comparatively simple to grasp, learn from, and overcome. Why wasn't "learn how to mass-manufacture reliably" a much earlier goal? Just because a system took 27 years to develop doesn't mean it takes 27 years to learn.

wpietri 9y ago

> Sometimes in startup-hair-on-fire-mode that all goes out the window If that's how you use it, then you also don't grasp it. The point of a process is that it supports you in hard times. (In easy times, any process will do.) In my view, the essence of Lean is patient incremental gain. Giving in to panic is throwing all its benefits away, and creating both immediate and long-term problems for yourself. A good counterexample to your theory is Toyota itself. They created the hybrid category from scratch. They are still the market leader. They started by building one. They moved on to a small annual production volume. As they worked out the kinks, they sold more and more, eventually starting to sell in the US. As far as I can tell, at no point did they enter "hair-on-fire mode".

carlivar 9y ago
Hmm, good point. I agree with you about patient incremental gain. I wish my boss and other leaders did. Maybe I also work for an Elon Musk, come to think of it. And yet, I'm still not sure my boss and others don't _understand_ lean manufacturing and its related disciplines. They just seem to pick and choose when they want to apply it. I was recently reading about Jeff Bezos and his "Day 1" mantra as well... perhaps the question is whether that sort of thing can apply to cars.
brianwawok 9y ago
Toyota also had profits of billions of dollars from other lines to back their Hybrid model. Tesla is basically a really big startup, and has nowhere near the cash reserve to take 6 years to bring the model 3 to market. It it basically get it out NOW, or fold. In 6 years Ford etc. etc. already has a model 3 equivalent for sale and knows how to manufacture. You can't play it so safe in an established market if you want to dive in.
- wpietri 9y ago
  I don't think it works like that. "Getting it out now" means building a very reliable, high-volume production line. If you rush that, you get an unreliable production line, which unless you just ship garbage, will be a low-volume production line or a very expensive production line. Or both. I understand why "hair-on-fire mode" feels right. One's internal feelings of urgency are matched by dramatic action. The chaos and excitement of red alert gives nobody time for contemplation and lets everyone ignore the uncomfortable feelings that might come from that. But people in that mode make terrible choices, drastically undervaluing the long term. In software, it's especially easy for us. Our products are rarely life critical, people are used to them being flaky, and we can fix things later by shipping new versions. None of these is true about cars. People used to ship garbage anyhow, which is why the US car market in the 70s and 80s was plagued with problems. And why Toyota and others could make such inroads. Tesla should absolutely be taking risks, especially product feature and marketing risks. But taking quality and productivity risks in hopes that they can somehow make it up later strikes me as a terrible idea.

Cthulhu_ 9y ago

Tesla isn't a startup though, they've been building cars for ten+ years and have a lot of smart people working for them that could've looked to wikipedia to figure out how the other car manufacturers manage to be efficient.

rphlx 9y ago
I really doubt the problem is "nobody there understands the theory". More likely, as a large public company with considerable presales and aggressive public commitments, the ops people are probably being pressured to "just push a few more cars through manually today, while trying to improve the automation". It's easy to armchair-COO the situation and claim that you would halt the entire line (or problematic parts of it) for 30+ days unless/until every step is at 90%+ yield, but if Musk or the Board is saying no to that, you are basically trapped in a suboptimal local maximum that you know how to escape, but are socially unable to.