One of the guiding principles at Toyota is the spirit of “Kaizan” or continuous improvement. The definition of Kaizen comes from two Japanese words: ‘kai’ meaning ‘change’ and ‘zen’ meaning ‘good’. The Japanese philosophy was first introduced by Toyota back in the 1980s and has since been adopted by thousands of companies around the globe. This lean transformation encourages an improvement culture that gradually increases quality, efficiency, and profitability.
It’s something that we, at Toyota Material Handling Australia (TMHA) implement throughout our business. We recognise that Kaizen isn’t a process that only involves management, it’s also implemented by frontline employees in the company.
In the spirit of Kaizan and continuous improvement as well as the overall TMHA safety strategy of “Making Safety More Positive” TMHA proudly launched its inaugural “TMHA Safety Solution Competition”. The aim of the competition was to harness the knowledge of our people by listening to their voice and recognising and rewarding effort and innovation. Those who wanted to participate were asked to submit their safety solution and pitch it to the panel of TMHA judges.
The response from our employees was nothing short of fantastic with competition submissions received from employees across our entire Australian TMHA branches. From these submissions, 7 entries were selected to proceed to the final round where each solution was demonstrated via a pre-recorded video in a very compelling, visual and extremely well-articulated way. Solutions were then tested in a practical manner, followed by a question and answer session with the Assessment Panel.
Our winner David Roberts from TMHA Perth won with an excellent solution to address the risks around the handling of tynes. David secured a cash prize of $5,000 that was on offer to the winner. TMHA offers its congratulations to David and all finalists for embracing the “Safety Solution Competition” and the spirit of Kaizan, both vital in enhancing TMHA’s safety principles and delivering a culture of continuous improvement.
David Roberts from TMHA WA receiving his winner’s cheque from TMHA WA Fixed Operations Manager Kristian Janicki