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Toshiba

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(1) What are the key elements of Toshiba’s business strategy in notebook computers? In what way do Ome’s operations support this strategy?

Toshiba retained its position as market leader at that time by beating its competitor with aggressively priced, technologically superior products. The Ome operation was key to that strategy, because it enabled Toshiba to produce higher quality products at lower prices. Relentless improvement to the manufacturing process resulted in higher quality products, making the products more attractive, and the increases in efficiency generated lower unit costs, which made their products more competitive and allowed the company to make further investments in quality and exploit an advantage on its …show more content…

And with 8 different models, and 6 different sets of features, Toshiba could sufficiently tailor its products to their markets without overwhelming the operation with too many templates and options. * A sophisticated computer network linked Ome with other domestic and overseas Toshiba development and production sites. This enabled the various operations to share best practices, to identify issues upstream and downstream, and to coordinate their production. * Workforce:
--Ome employs four kinds of workers (full-time, part-time, temporary and affiliated workers) which gives Ome flexibility with its production capacity so it can respond to market demands while managing its labor costs.
--Every new professional employee spends one month working on the assembly line before assuming his or her regular duties. This way, the assembly operation will be more than just an abstraction to them, and they can perform their tasks with a better awareness of the big picture.
--Flexibility and smart redundancy were built into the system. The line employed “supporters”—highly skilled workers who would roam the assembly line to help out if anyone was falling behind, using their expertise to keep the line working at top efficiency. Supporters could also stop production if there were problems. Ome also had “pack-men”—workers who could do any job on the line, on all models. The pack-men were able to fill-in for any worker, giving the operation a security blanket so

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