Skip to main content

OBEYA (BIG ROOM) EXAMPLE IN LEAN

Origin

The G21 project was a largescale project that enfolded at Toyota in the 1990’s. The aim was to navigate Toyota through the advent of the 21st century, by creating a vehicle (catalogue) that could withstand the challenges of the upcoming 21st century, including ever growing resource scarcity.  

Many of you have seen one of the most prominent fruits of this project on the road. Perhaps, you or someone you know, even drives it. We are of course referring to the Toyota Prius. Less well known is another “fruit” of the G21 project, namely the “obeya” (大部屋) which translates to “big room” and was the brain child of Takeshi Uchiyamada, the chief engineer of the G21 project.  

As the project advanced, Uchiyamada started to experience the same frustrating situation over and over again. Toyota was not a small company. In fact it was an industrial behemoth. A vast variety of experts, leaders and stakeholders wandered around in that gigantic ecosystem, both in and outside the Aichi prefecture in Japan.

The G21 project could not be contained to one or just a handful of parts, in this gigantic ecosystem. It needed to blanket the whole organization. But how could Uchiyamada do that, with all these conflicting preferences and ideas? How could he do it with all these data islands that were no connected? This frustrating efforts to bring the project to the organization was replaced by a new tactic. Takeshi Uchiyamada would bring the organization to the project! He drew inspiration from already existing concepts and created a physical room that would host stakeholders, experts and decision makers on a regular basis. They would be surrounded by all the relevant data.

The idea was that this setup would maximize effective and efficient communication. Data would not stay on little islands, ideas would not have to be voiced over and over again, but rather once! These days, many organizations, including Nike, have copied this practice of the obeya.

Setup

Contrary to what some believe, there exists no universal way to actually set the obeya up. Here are a variety of setups that we have seen in practice. Lean practitioners should feel free to deviate from these setups if they believe that it benefits the cause.

Setup A:

Wall 1: Performance metrics

Wall 2: Ideas: Concepts, design sketches etc.

Wall 3: Progress data: Kanban boards, Gantt charts etc.

Wall 4: Feedback: Internal feedback from colleagues and external feedback from the field.

Setup B:

Wall 1: Customer information: VOC, personas, feedback etc.

Wall 2: Product (or service) information: Concepts, sketches etc.

Wall 3: Process information: Value stream map, process map etc.

Wall 4: Performance information: KPIs. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

LEAN STORY: "HOLLAND IS NOT JAPAN!"

I really hate to fly longer than 2-3 hours, but in 2025 I found myself yet again on board of a plane, this time being imprisoned for almost 14 hours as it would fly from Amsterdam to Tokyo. This already long flight had become even longer due to the fact that certain airspace had to be avoided due to political factors. Be it as it may, with such an ocean of time at my disposal, I drafted a new offline course and I watched Joker Folie a Deux, not once but twice. I actually appreciated it too, contrary to the vast majority of people. In fact, I found it to be a masterpiece!  I wanted to make the trip to Japan for years, but every time something had come up and I couldn’t get the factory access that I wanted. But this time was different and I managed to secure a good mix of factory tours and interviews with professionals and academics. The trip was worth the hassle. On the third day of the trip, I left an extremely hot Tokyo to travel to an even hotter Nagoya. I would have never im...
Post a Comment
Read more

THE MBA, MY WORST MISTAKE!

It was a rainy evening in Maastricht, a not particularly big city in the South of Holland. It had been raining non stop for 3 weeks and if you wouldn't know better, you would wonder why the heavens do not run out of water! Maastricht is a city that seems to have been stuck with one leg in the early 20th century and it is exactly that which gives it its charm. For me, a trip to Maastricht is not just a trip in space. It is also a trip in time! Anyways, enough with the city marketing, especially because they did not pay a cent to sponsor this article!   I had a busy day in Maastricht discussing a possible partnership with a Belgian e-commerce company. Long story short, we did not agree on a cooperation, but we had a few laughs and shared some valuable experiences and that too is not a bad outcome. Without an agreement, but with a cup of coffee in my hand, I was waiting in the central station of Maastricht, waiting for the train that would take me back home. Then I hear "hello si...
Post a Comment
Read more

LIFEFLATION VS INFLATION

  The picture was sent by one of my students who couldn’t attend his exam. I have heard the most creative excuses from students who were too late for their exam. “My dog ate my contact lenses” from 2014 is so far the most memorable. But the one I heard last month was unique! A student was scheduled for an oral exam. About 30 minutes before the exam, he emails me: “Sir, I can’t make it. I am in the train and my jeans have split in two parts. I have to head back home. I can’t show up like this…..” Once at home, he sends me the picture I’m showing here. Turns out that this was the second time this happened with his jeans. My student wasn’t lying because I was there the first time it happened. It happened in class as he bent to pick up his ear pods that fell on the ground. The jeans split into two parts on the backside. Inflation is the increase of the aggregate price level and is generally tracked by the so-called CPI. In the most simple terms, products and services become more expe...
Post a Comment
Read more