Engineering Design at a Toyota Company : Knowledge Management and the Innovative Process

ABStrAct The author worked in the research and design department at a large Toyota company in the late 1990s and experienced an innovative process where engineers worked in tightly knit groups where monitoring, the informal hierarchy and dependence resulted from an emphasis on collective work. In the approach to innovation during the design process, the Toyota engineers were found to engage in an inductive process that placed an emphasis on the concrete and an orientation toward the field as a result of an approach that relied on experience based knowledge. The use of tacit and explicit knowledge is discussed within the context of the design process and the author finds that explicit knowledge dominates the improvement of productivity and organizational learning. The latest research in the sociology of culture and cultural psychology is used to highlight the cognitive approach to problem solving during the innovative process.