Advantages Of Toyota

The case describes the details about the production process of Toyota and the principles they are following, like JIT & Jidoka in Toyota Production System (TPS), heijunka & kaizen. How they have control the cost, maintain quality through process

Today, Toyota is the world's third largest manufacturer of automobiles in terms of both unit sales and net sales. It is also the largest Japanese automotive manufacturer, producing more than 5.5 million vehicles per year, equivalent to one every six seconds. See Appendix 1 for a list of its guiding principles. Appendix 2 depicts excerpts from the company’s 2000 annual report showing their main goals for that year. The company has 12 manufacturing plants in Japan and approximately 54 manufacturing companies in 27 countries throughout the world. These plants produce vehicles and components under the Lexus and Toyota brand names and employ about one quarter of a million people worldwide. In total Toyota vehicles are marketed and sold in more than 160 countries and regions with the automotive business, including sales and finance of the vehicles, accounting for more than 90% of the company's total sales. Appendix 3 shows worldwide sales and appendix 4 shows the models produced in North American Toyota plants. North Americanization of Toyota Since the late 1980’s Toyota had made several moves that showed their commitment to what management called the North Americanization of the company. The idea was to increase car sales in the lucrative North American market by also introducing manufacturing plants that produced parts and assembled whole vehicles for

Toyota is a leading company, and for over 70 years. It has been expanding business all over the world and

So far the Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan has surpassed all the American Auto Industry such as Chrysler, Ford and General Motors. Toyota has also topped the world ' most admired Vehicles Industry according to Fortune Magazine. There are various factors that have made the American Auto Industry to face stiff competition. The following are some factors:

Automobile industry of japan witnessed an awesome accomplishment with the growth of Toyota. It became the biggest maker in the worldwide business. Toyoda kiichiro was hesitant to invest in automobile sector. In the year 1933 the company started its production. In order to have cost efficiency they adopted the mass production technology.

Supplies are becoming more and more expensive. The bargaining power of suppliers is very important for Toyota’s survival. Toyota must produce and sell their vehicles so they have the profits to buy the materials that they need to build their cars. With out money they can’t buy supplies, which lead them to not producing vehicles.

Toyota Motor Corporation is one of the most important automaker that has been operational since 1973, based in Japan. The company has gone global and their operations are massive such that it trades in the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The company started as a department of the human resources that used to employ 317,734, before it become the biggest automobile due to the huge production that it used to make from the huge labour. It was until the operations were now very stable that the automaker became globally known and being the largest conglomerate in the world. Toyota was able to attain a high number of customers who were

2.2. In what ways can the Toyota Production system be seen as rare and difficult to imitate?

Another reason Toyota gained a significant advantage was also meeting another point of Deming’s 14 points which was 5. Improve constantly and forever the systems of production and services this was evident in Toyotas production system with adopting new production procedures through in-house development with developing the ‘lean manufacturing system’ which focused on more efficient working with focusing on the best quality, lowest cost and shortest lead time (institute, 2000b) this was achieved through eliminating waste. Toyota was able achieve this new line of production management with two concepts just in time management which focused on delivery inputs to Toyotas operation facilities just in time to be used which meant Toyota was successfully able to cut costs with storage or raw materials being waiting to be used (institute, 2000b) which allowed Toyota to meet one of the Lean manufacturing criteria of lowest cost, and jidoka was concept created on automatic looms which stopped the machine when the thread broke which maintained quality within the product this was implemented

65 years ago , in 1937 , Toyota Motor Corporation was founded first as a subsidiary of Toyota Automatic Works, one of the largest manufacturers of knitting machines led by the "King of Inventions " Sakichi Toyoda . To date , Toyota is the second largest automaker in units sold and net sales. It is by far the largest Japanese car manufacturer , producing more than 4.5 million vehicles per year , equivalent to one every six seconds. But like any company , on the way there have been painful events . In 1950 Toyota suffered its first and only strike. Workers and direction out of this situation with

Lean production of vehicles was started in Japan by Toyota company. It has some similarities with the mass production; however, it is quite different from the craft production. One of the main similarities that the lean production shares with the mass production is that they both use the assembly line for the production of the vehicles, which was initiated by Ford. Unlike, mass production: “Ohno placed a cord above every work station and instructed worker to stop the whole assembly line immediately if a problem emerged that they couldn’t fix” (56). In the mass production, if the problem occurred, and no one paid attention to it while the production process, then the car company had to fix the errors in all the vehicles that had been produced no matter how large the quantity was. In the lean production of vehicles: “Ohno instead instituted a system of problem-solving called “the five why’s” (56). Taiichi Ohno, the founder of Toyota company, made sure that once the problem has been identified in the production process, then what kind of precautions company can take to prevent the problem, so it never occurs again, which saved a lot of time compared to mass production. One similarity that lean production has with the craft production is that the vehicles were not produced on a larger scale, rather they were diverse small vehicles, such as trucks and cars. In the mass production, changing the die cut process took months; however, in the lean production process reduced

The main point of departure between the model that was used by Henry Ford and the Toyota Production system was the change in focus from individual machines and their functions to the manner in which manufacturing flowed across each machine. Through small changes to generate small amount of different part numbers and improving communication in the entire process, Toyota was able to increase variety of products made, improve quality, reduce costs, and augment the rate at which products are made (Brady & Allen 2006, P

Toyota has had numerous outer issues to handle when contriving and doing their own particular technique. The market has various car dealerships, departing the level of rivalry at a high rate. They need to consider what their rivals are doing to allure purchasers and match or top their arrangements with the Toyota line of autos. As such, they have possessed the capacity to do this effectively. The auto organizations have needed to consistently improve the elements offered in their models, while attempting to keep the costs as low as would be prudent to pull in purchasers. They have succeeded for a long time since they have been so flexible with their items. As of now, Toyota, alongside a few other auto organizations is encountering down turns in their edge. The car business depends on whether purchasers can buy autos. Since the falling of the economy in various nations, this has been harmed who can stand to purchase autos. Toyota has chosen to offer a six year no enthusiasm financing. This will extremely diminish their salary.

The resources and capabilities possessed by Toyota can be considered to be the building blocks for the development of Toyota’s ability to obtain and maintain competitive advantage. At a functional

main strategy for the North American market is to aim for higher sales, while raising the proportion of locally produced automobiles. Toyota Motor Corp have reached a stage where investments made over the last several years to expand production capacity are beginning to show returns and improved profitability can be expected. Toyota’s goal is to bolster local production through additional investment, and contribute to the regional economy by expanding its operations. At present, our production capacity in North America is approximately 1.25 million units (including our joint venture with GM). However, Toyota Motor Corp plan to boost this to 1.45 million units during 2003.