Articles #Jidoka: Process Autonomation in Process Improvement Expalined

Jidoka, often translated as “autonomation” or “automation with a human touch,” is one of the core pillars of the Lean manufacturing system pioneered by Toyota. In Japanese, Jidoka (自働化) combines “ji” (self or autonomy) and “doka” (automation), and focuses on endowing processes with the ability to detect and respond to abnormalities autonomously, while also involving human intervention for quality issues or equipment malfunctions. Through Jidoka, a process can “stop itself” whenever an issue occurs, allowing workers or machines to halt production to address quality issues immediately, thereby preventing defects from progressing further down the line.