Colours, Discipline and Japanese culture ..

I was discussing with my colleagues this morning about how Toyota, in spite of a fall in production in its automobiles in India as of today ( which is observed across the automobile industry in the country), does not plan to shut down its plant or layoff any of its workers.

This is the time which Toyota gainfully employs to bring in changes to the shop floor. The workers are trained and asked to suggest improvements in their work, workplace, organisation, tools, jigs etc by Kaizens to improve the shop floor.

In 2008-09 when a global recession hit all automobile companies of the world, in the mornings, the Toyota Kirloskar workers in India were asked to attend some training classes on improving their workplace, work etc and afternoon time they were sent back to the shop floor to implement their learnings of the morning and previous days.

It is said, every Japanese family in the morning, classifies the waste in their homes into different coloured bags for easy and efficient disposal. If any house commits a mistake in their segregation, the garbage collection van does not pick the garbage , instead drops it in front of the house. It is a great insult for the house owner to have garbage in front of their house and tries his level best to do proper segregation of waste at home itself.

When these workers and officers come to the office or shop floor, they find the same colours and work discipline, have no qualms about it and stick to these standards even on the shop floor, keeping their workplace clean and tidy and doing the scheduled jobs well within the time.

If this is not part of Japanese culture, what is ?? Is it possible for other countries to imbibe this positive Japanese culture in their organisational structures ?

george..