Toyota Financial Services Corporation, the finance division of Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan, provides vehicle finance and leasing for individuals and business across 32 countries. Since 2001 their mission has been to: "Improve processes throughout the global network of sales finance companies by promoting a culture of best practices in the spirit of the Toyota Way."

1. CASE STUDY
TOYOTA FINANCIAL SERVICES
smarter processes www.promapp.com
Toyota Financial Services Corporation, the
finance division of Toyota Motor
Corporation in Japan, provides vehicle
finance and leasing for individuals and
business across 32 countries. Since 2001
their mission has been to: "Improve
processes throughout the global network
of sales finance companies by promoting a
culture of best practices in the spirit of the
Toyota Way."
www.tfs.co.nz
Simple technology for improving
processes
Toyota Finance Australia and New Zealand (TFS) had invested a lot of time in
documenting its processes and policies, but it lacked an adequate means of
managing on-going improvements and changes. Promapp provided the ideal
solution.
Like its parent, TFS has long placed great emphasis on 'best practices' and the
Toyota Way. Local Process Engineer Thomas Kohlenbach explains that Kaizen -
as one part of the Toyota Way - involves employees asking 'what can I do better?'
"This could be simply improving workflow and efficiency, or finding other ways to
make things easier or better. In this way improvements are developed from the
ground up and flow through the organisation."
By 2006 TFS realised it had a problem. While a considerable amount of work had
been done on mapping processes, the manuals and procedures were being
stored as Word documents, which was a less than ideal medium.
"They could run to 120 pages or more and people found them hard to
understand," says Kohlenbach. "They were also difficult and time consuming to
change, with a lengthy change management process. We knew a better approach
was needed."
TFS started to look for a simpler technology based solution, eventually arriving at a
shortlist of two contenders, one of which was Promapp.

2. CASESTUDY
TOYOTA FINANCIAL SERVICES
smarter processes www.promapp.com
"If you want an agile and
improving process
environment then gone are the
days when a couple of
business analysts are left to
nut it out on their own in a
back room,"
Thomas Kohlenbach, TOYOTA
FINANCE
An agile and improving process environment
Promapp's software has been designed to provide a tool to manage on-going
process improvement and process change. Kohlenbach says Promapp was
eventually selected because it was much easier to use and update and, unlike the
competing package, it would not require specialist staff to configure and operate
it.
A feature unique to Promapp is that any staff member can be assigned as
"process owner", giving them edit rights to their own process, and anyone can
suggest improvements to a process. While having a central point of governance is
critical, Kohlenbach says it's equally important that nominated process owners
can update their own processes.
"If you want an agile and improving process environment then gone are the days
when a couple of business analysts are left to nut it out on their own in a back
room," he says.
Promapp is available as a web-based solution, so it can be deployed quickly, and
licensed by a monthly subscription, rather than necessarily requiring a capital
outlay.
Kohlenbach says TFS elected to host the package on an internal server in order to
meet compliance requirements of its parent company.
He says the company sent a "kick-off group" of seven employees for a one-day
in-depth training session at Promapp. The idea was that this core group would
then introduce Promapp and its methodology to their colleagues.
"Promapp had offered to train the whole company but the initial training was so
good we felt we could handle it ourselves," says Kohlenbach.
After more than six months of use, the Promapp software has provided many
business benefits. Kohlenbach says one of the most noticeable differences has
been a dramatic reduction in the time taken to train new or promoted employees.
Staff can use Promapp to view the responsibilities of their role and the processes
associated with it, all within an easy-to-follow, drill down structure. Promapp has
also encouraged collaboration within the organisation, which has assisted in rolling
out process improvements.