Embraer recently announced a partnership with the world’s largest car maker, Toyota, to introduce the Toyota Production System (TPS) into its aircraft manufacturing and assembly processes. TPS perfectly fits Embraer’s plans to reduce production lead times by forty percent next year, as AirInsight reported before. We discussed the partnership with Toyota in a bit more detail at the Farnborough Airshow with Luis Marino, Executive Vice President of Operations. What Embraer can learn from Toyota.
First some information about what the Toyota Production System stands for from the car maker’s own website: “TPS was established based on two concepts: “jidoka” (which can be loosely translated as “automation with a human touch”), as when a problem occurs, the equipment stops immediately, preventing defective products from being produced; and the “Just-in-Time” concept, in which each process produces only what is needed for the next process in a continuous flow. Based on the basic philosophies of jidoka and Just-in-Time, TPS can efficiently and quickly produce vehicles of sound quality, one at a time, that fully satisfy customer requirements.”
Active as a journalist since 1987, with a background in newspapers, magazines, and a regional news station, Richard has been covering commercial aviation on a freelance basis since late 2016.
Richard is contributing to AirInsight since December 2018. He also writes for Airliner World, Aviation News, Piloot & Vliegtuig, and Luchtvaartnieuws Magazine. Twitter: @rschuur_aero.
