CASE STUDY: TOYOTA FACTORY
MODE VS STUDIO MODE
From Leadership Principles for
Engineers, Scientists, and Researchers
CASE STUDY: TOYOTA FACTORY MODE VS STUDIO MODE FROM LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES FOR ENGINEERS, SCIENTISTS, AND RESEARCHERS
WHAT WILL YOU GET OUT OF THIS CASE STUDY?
This case study is extracted from MIT xPRO’s online program for professionals, Leadership Principles
for Engineers, Scientists, and Researchers.
After going through this case study, you’ll be able to:
• Gain a better understanding of the concept of “dynamic work design”
• Define and recognize when you need to apply “Factory Work” mode vs. “Studio work” mode
• Identify when to change work mode in order to problem solve quickly and efficiently
WHY THIS CASE STUDY?
As your organization’s work designer, your job isn’t simply to pick the box between different work
modes but rather to design the rules that move a piece of work back and forth between those two
boxes depending on the state of the work. This type of dynamic work design is a more effective
method of managing workflow.
Self-Help Documentation:
In this document, we visually present an example of dynamic work design at a Toyota supplier. See
if you can determine when the shift happens between work modes.
Before You Continue:
Watch this 7-minute video with MIT’s Nelson Repenning where he introduces the concept of “dynamic
work design” here: https://youtu.be/FBMIrNlWBKw
The excerpt below from the article, “A New Approach to Designing Work” can also help you
understand factory mode vs studio mode:
Consider a well-known example of work and organizational design, Toyota’s Andon cord. In the
Toyota scheme, a worker noticing such an issue is supposed to pull what’s known as the Andon cord
(or push a button) to stop the production line and fix the problem. While the management literature
has correctly highlighted the importance of allowing employees to stop the line, what happens after
the cord is pulled might be more important. During a recent visit we took to a Toyota supplier in
Toyota City, Japan, we observed that one operator on the factory floor was struggling to complete
her task in the allotted time, and so she hit a yellow button, causing an alarm to sound and a light
to flash. (This factory has replaced the Andon cord with a yellow button at each operator’s station.)
Within seconds, the line’s supervisor arrived and assisted the operator in resolving the issue that
was preventing her from following the prescribed process. In less than a minute, the operator,
now able to hit her target, returned to her normal routine, and the supervisor went back to other
activities. A visual of this process can be seen on the next page.
ALL MATERIALS ©2019 MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 1
CASE STUDY: TOYOTA FACTORY MODE VS STUDIO MODE FROM LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES FOR ENGINEERS, SCIENTISTS, AND RESEARCHERS
DYNAMIC WORK DESIGN AT A TOYOTA SUPPLIER
ORGANIZE
PROBLEM SOLVING
COLLABORATIVELY
PROBLEM SOLVED
CHANGE
WORK MODE
“FACTORY”
PUSH BUTTON
ORGANIZE
SERIALLY PROBLEM
WELL-DEFINED WORK AMBIGUOUS WORK
What, from a work design perspective, happened in this short episode? Initially, the operator was working in
the “factory” mode, executing well-defined work to a clearly specified time target. (See the box on the lower
left in the exhibit “Dynamic Work Design at a Toyota Supplier.”) But when something in that careful design
broke down, the operator couldn’t complete her task in the allotted time. Once the problem occurred, the
operator had two options for responding. She could have found an ad hoc adjustment, a workaround or
shortcut that would allow her to keep working. But this choice often leads to highly dysfunctional outcomes.
Alternatively, as we observed, she could push the button, stop the work, and ask for help. By summoning
the supervisor to help, pushing the button temporarily changed the work design. The system briefly left the
mechanistic, serial mode in favor of a more organic, collaborative approach focused on problem resolution.
Once the problem was resolved, the operator returned to her normal task and to the serial work design.
The Toyota production system might at first appear to be the ultimate in mechanistic design, but a closer
look suggests something far more dynamic. When a worker pulls the Andon cord, the system actually
moves between two modes based on the state of the work. Though the nature of the work couldn’t be
more different, such movement between the two modes is also the key to understanding the success of
agile software development. What happens when organizations don’t do a good job of cycling between
factory and studio modes of work? We have observed two related failure modes, ineffective iteration and
wasted attention. When they are combined, they create a truly unproductive work design — one we have
dubbed the axis of frustration. (See “The Axis of Frustration.”)
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CASE STUDY: TOYOTA FACTORY MODE VS STUDIO MODE FROM LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES FOR ENGINEERS, SCIENTISTS, AND RESEARCHERS
THE AXIS OF FRUSTRATION
ORGANIZE
COLLABORATIVELY
“STUDIO”
WASTED ATTENTION
THE AXIS OF
FRUSTRATION
ORGANIZE
SERIALLY
“FACTORY” INEFFECTIVE ITERATION
“STUDIO”
WELL-DEFINED WORK AMBIGUOUS WORK
Most work processes have not been designed with escalation mechanisms in mind. So, when senior
managers want to intervene and scrutinize a project, they don’t know where to look and want to review
everything. The result of such scrutiny is long review meetings, the majority of which focus on elements of
the process that are just fine, thereby trapping the process in the upper left-hand box, “wasted attention.”
Worse, long review meetings and the preparation that they require steal time and resources from
actual work, thus intensifying the time pressure that prevented a proper shift between work modes in
the first place. Without careful attention to the mechanisms that move a process between the individual
and collaborative modes, processes can increasingly cycle between ineffective iteration (costly and slow
iteration) and wasted attention, basically moving between frantically trying to solve (or at least hide) the
latest problem before the next review, and endless, soul-destroying review meetings that never get to
solving the problems that would really make a difference.
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ALL MATERIALS ©2019 MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
CASE STUDY: TOYOTA FACTORY MODE VS STUDIO MODE FROM LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES FOR ENGINEERS, SCIENTISTS, AND RESEARCHERS
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References:
D Keiffer, N.P. Repenning, and J. Repenning. (2018). A new approach to designing work. Retrieved from http://mitsmr.com/2BbGMC9
J. Liker, M. Hoseus, and the Center for Quality People and Organizations, “Toyota Culture: The Heart and Soul of the Toyota Way” (New
York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2008).
N.R. Repenning and J.D. Sterman, “Capability Traps and Self-Confirming Attribution Errors in the Dynamics of Process Improvement,”
Administrative Science Quarterly 47, no. 2 (June 2002): 265-295; and N. Leveson, “A Systems Approach to Risk Management Through
Leading Safety Indicators,” Reliability Engineering and System Safety 136 (April 2015): 17-34.
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