Toyota Car Manufacturing Essay

Toyota Motor Manufacturing (TMM), USA Inc. is formed by Toyota Motor Corp (TMC) in 1985 by investing $800 million to build a Plant at Kentucky, USA which will starts production in 1988 of around 200,000 units of Camry Sedan car. The purpose of building a plant is to compete in US market in midsize car which is comprise of one third of total US car market. TMM producing the cars on the same philosophy, methodology and technology, which TMC used to produce cars at their best quality and lowest cost in Japan.

Toyota global production in 2006 was more than nine million vehicles. That’s the equivalent of one car coming off the production line every 3.5 seconds, every minute, every hour, every day.

Toyota as the world 's third car manufacturing company and the first in Japan has introduced a new era in the vehicles history.

The first gasoline powered automobile was built 1885 in Germany. The first car was engineered by Henry Ford in 1896. He took things a notch higher by establishing an assembly line which enabled him to mass produce the vehicles thus making them affordable to the consumers.

After WW2 Japan was in an economic crisis which continued until 1949 when the company obtained a loan from several banks. In June 1950 the company only produced 300 trucks and management announced layoffs and wage reductions and in response, the union went on strike which last for two months. While the strike did eventually end and layoffs and wage reductions did occur the union stipulated that the president Kiichiro Toyoda must resign. Kiichiro Toyoda resigned from his company and the company then came under the leadership of Taizo Ishida CEO of Toyoda Automatic Loom. In 1950 a separate sales company Toyota Motor Sales Co was established (lasted until 1982). In 1956 the Toyota dealership chain was established. In 1957 the Crown motor vehicle became the first Japanese car to be exported to America thus establishing Toyota’s American division. In 1960s Toyota began to expand with a new research and development facility in Thailand. The first Toyota motor vehicle built outside Japan was in April 1963 in Melbourne. From 1963-1965 Australia was Toyota’s biggest export market. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wuki/History_of_Toyota)

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.

Typically, a car manufacturer teases a concept it intends to build and approves it for production within the year. For example, in the case of the Chevrolet Bolt introduced at the Detroit auto show (NAIAS) last January, it was green-lighted for production before the start of the Chicago Auto Show the following month.

Finally, Japanese auto companies had to increase their prices by 40%. Indeed, even though the yen appreciation already led to a small price increase for Japanese cars sold in the US (10% in 1986), this was not enough to preserve decent margins, and led instead to income drops.

The main topic of the case was the problems caused by defective or damaged seats. TMM USA's seat problem was threefold. The first was the actual defects with the hooks and the damaged caused by cross threading by employees when installing the seats. This problem led to the second problem, which was the departure from the Toyota Production System (TPS) when dealing with the seat problem. Rather than fix the problem with the seat when it happened, they continued with the car's production and worried about the seat afterwards. And this led to the third problem, a build up of cars with seat problems in the off-line operation area.

Toyota Motor Manufacturing, U.S.A. (TMM) is deviating from the standard assembly line principle of jidoka in an attempt to avoid expenses incurred from stopping the production line for seat quality defects. This deviation has contributed to the inability to identify the root cause of the problem, which has led to decreased run ratios on the line and an excess of defective automobiles in the overflow lot for multiple days. If this problem isn’t fixed quickly, an increased amount of waste will continue to be incurred and customer value will be threatened.

1. Political: Total industry automobile sales in Japan for fiscal year 2012 rose approximately 3% to approximately 4.75 million units. Although the Great East Japan Earthquake and the floods in Thailand had an impact, automobile sales remained stable due to government stimulus policies that provided tax breaks and subsidies for eco-car purchases in the second half of the fiscal year as well as other factors. (p.19)

As you can see, Nissan was very successful during and after the World War II. However, on the other hand, Nissan provided the cars in Japan and in Manchuria during the war to support Japan. However, after the war, all the local shops in Japan were organized by Toyota. Toyota has made huge connection all over Japan, until today, Japanese citizens known Nissan as technology, and Toyota as marketing centered group. Toyota has taken over the share of car sales not only in Japan but overseas

Toyota Motor Corporation is a Japanese multinational corporation that was founded in 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda as a spinoff from his father’s company Toyota Industries to create automobiles. It is a Japanese automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota, Aichi, Japan. As of November 2014, it is the 12th largest company in the world by revenue.

Saki-chi Toyoda was the one who laid the foundation of the massive international company known as TOYOTA today. He was born on 14 February, 1867. Toyoda was grown up in a poor family and his father worked as a carpenter, but he later known as the “King of Japanese Inventors.” He is also believed to be the person behind “Japanese industrial revolution”. He invented automatic loom and invested all his money to create the Toyota Motor Company. Japanese government gave much support for creation for this company

Currently recession is prevailing in the market so the global car sale of Toyota is showing a downward trend. Also changes in interest rates, inflation and currency rates can act both as a threat and an opportunity. Inflation rates differ from country to country for instance in Japan the inflation rate is relatively low as compared to USA. The lower the interest rate, the better its for Toyota since the