Toyota Under Fire: Book Summary: Toyota Under Fire

Toyota was thought to be the best quality car in the 1970s and 1980s but, due to Japanese competition, American car manufactures soon began to close the rankings gap. At the top of their game in 2010, Toyota had to stop manufacturing and order a large recall of automobiles. While leadership was probably considered great at the height of Toyota’s success, changes were obviously needed during the recall period and management needed to be as adaptable to those changing conditions. The only thing regarded as permanent in a market economy is change

In the book, The Toyota Way, Jeffery Liker provides an in-depth account of, not only the tools and methods of Toyota’s Production System, but also a broader explanation of the principles at work in the Toyota culture. This philosophy of manufacturing can be summarized through two important pillars: “Continuous Improvement” and “Respect for People.” These pillars help define Toyota’s approach to doing business, were the focus is on continuous learning and embracing change. By incorporating this ideology and its 14 principles into its manufacturing operations, Toyota has become the greatest manufacturer in the world. In this essay, I will provide a synopsis of Toyota’s 14 principles and also offer my own account of lean manufacturing at CNH Industrial.

Toyota is the world’s largest car manufacturer beating out Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler. They had double digit gains in April of 2014 delivering an impressive 13.3 percent more automobiles than April of the previous year. Despite the recall debacle that happened, they have been able to hold the No. 1 spot this year (Le, 2014). Toyota has numerous comparative benefits over their competition. They have a solid working model that produces high margins, a strong international brand that is known for quality and a business model that permits them to produce multiple car models for a very low amount of money while doing it at a fast pace and producing the best quality.

Seventy-eight years ago Kiichiro Toyoda has founding Toyota Motor Corporation and the automotive manufacturer has become one of the powerful manufacturer company around the world. In the motor industry, Toyota has make into 100 “Most Admired” list of companies in the world on the Fortune Magazine in 2016 (Szczesny, 2016).

For more than 50 years, Toyota Motor Corporation has been one of the world’s leading manufacturers of motor vehicles in the United States. It was born a Japanese company in 1935 and came to America in 1957. Now headquartered in Toyota City, Japan, it employs more than 300 thousand employees globally (Toyota Motor Corporation Company Profile, 2012). In addition Toyota is a global marketing organization. It strategically operates primarily through Japan, Asia, Europe, and North America; but its vehicles are sold in more than 170 countries and regions across the globe (Toyota Motor Corporation Company Profile, 2012). The Toyota brand is traditionally defined by brand attributes such as global leadership, innovation,

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

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)

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

Good accountability must be made evident by managers. Do not expect personnel to be responsible if the management team is not answerable to one other. Constructing connections must become a principal objective, not an advantage of laboring for a business. If someone is not holding a team colleague responsible for they are not sure what he/she sees to, then go discover. If there’s distrust, talk to each other to uncover and resolve any issues, past or present. Get to know and like each other by building personal relationships. Most distrust dissolves when people open up to each other. Next, begin rules of responsibility and reliance because if you put “trust-building into your team charter, you’ll go a long way toward creating a culture of accountability and trust” (Smith, 2004). Create effective team processes since creating good working agreements and practices for the team promotes an unrestricted exchange of ideas and cultivates confidence.

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

The purpose of this report is to examine if the reasoning behind well-known car manufacturer, Toyota’s loss of revenue and leading market position is alone as a result of extensive product recalls following a fatal crash of a Lexus ES 350 on August 28th 2009. The journal article, “Toyota Crisis: Management Issue?” (Yuanyuan Feng 2010) provides an outline of the key factors that triggered the 2009 Toyota crisis, and explores whether the fall in the company’s returns by 19% were caused purely as a result of the recall and safety concerns, or something much deeper.

Toyota has various global branch offices in the world and it supports the company by having a strong market position. Toyota’s markets for two most recognized brands Lexus and Toyota and could be considered as great market share in different regions such as in North America, in Asia excluding Japan, in Europe, in China, and etc. This helps Toyota have a better competitive advantages and opportunities of growing in global marketplace. Toyota also concentrates on Research & Development in the global facilities in order to enhance quality of service and product functionality, thus increasing product safety. A good strength is based on the innovation of current products, development of new products and manufacturing process. This strength supports Toyota in incorporating modern attributes such as technology to current range of products and other related fields, maintaining technical and innovative leadership in its automotive

Toyota has implemented a learn culture that consist of problem solving, teamwork, and a continuous improvement culture to sustain lean. According to Toyota (Greto, 2010), “the world's leading automotive company and a global benchmark for quality and continuous improvement stumbled seriously. They faced a recall crisis unlike any they had seen before. Mr. Akio Toyoda, Toyota's president and grandson of the founder, was called to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about the company's response to the recall. Through the lens of the accelerator crisis, the case documents trade-offs Toyota made while pursuing a marketing strategy based on quality and customer experience, while simultaneously pursing an operational generic cost leadership strategy.” The Lean process used by Toyota was “the Toyota way”. This lean process focused on JIT (Just in Time), continuous improvement, JIDOKA (in station quality), people and teamwork, best quality, lowest cost, shortest lead time, leveled production (HEIJUNKA), and these were known as the Toyota way philosophy. The parties involved all stakeholders, employees, suppliers, government standard agencies, customers, creditors, and financial institutions. This event affects everyone related to the Toyota Company. The urgency

Toyota Motor Corporation is a transnational corporation headquartered in Japan, is the largest automaker company in the world by revenue. Toyota is considered as the image and prestige of Japan. The outstanding success of Toyota stems from a perfect combination of the production system and the traditional cultural identity of Japanese people.

Toyota is a key player in global automotive market. Its structure constitutes if various production plants in different locations and a very strong branding which helps it capture a major market share. Like other enterprises, Toyota has several strengths and weakness which makes it what it is now. Toyota heavily invests in Research and development which helps it come up reputable product line which is spread out throughout the world because of its strengthening global distribution network however its recent product recalling, loose grip in key geographic areas and wrong allocation of resources shows that even a strong brand like Toyota has its weaknesses.