Obeya


Obeya originated in the 90's at Toyota while building the Prius. It is considered a component of lean manufacturing and in particular the Toyota Production System. Analogies have been drawn between an obeya and the bridge of a ship, a war room and even a brain.
During the product and process development, all individuals involved in managerial planning meet in a "great room" to speed communication and decision-making. This is intended to reduce "departmental thinking" and improve on methods like email and social networking. The Obeya can be understood as a team spirit improvement tool at an administrative level.
Conceptually akin to traditional “war rooms,” an Obeya will contain visually engaging charts and graphs depicting such information as program timing, milestones and progress-to-date and countermeasures to existing technical or scheduling issues.