Toyota’s Operations Manage: A Global Success Story

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In regards to the workers, this means not forcing them to do more work, but just have large array of skills, so they can switch departments in slow times, therefore having a multi-skilled workforce is essential to the JIT concept.

Kaizen “continuous Improvement”

Kaizen literally translate to continuous improvement. This means all processes should be defined specifically and improvement constantly. This includes all the aspects of quality, waste management, and increased efficiency.

Workers also use Kanban which is a tag for each component. The tab moves around with the part to insure quality and when it is returned. It is logged into a system that will automatically re-order the part when low in supply. Also, this helps minimize the amount of paperwork.

Jidoka

The Term Jidoka translate to automation, specifically the concept, “automation with a human touch”. Jidoka helps focus machinery to have the ability to sense problems and stop production when problems occur.

Suppliers & TPS

In order to keep the concept of JIT, Toyota has a unique and esteemed relationship with all their suppliers. The relationship with their supplies will be emphasized during this case study. They treat their suppliers as equals. They share in the belief of JIT. They work together to continuously improve parts. They jointly, Toyota and every supply, pursue increased productivity, quality, and safe working conditions. 2

Works Cited:

- http://www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/1867-1939.html

- http://www.toyota.com.au/toyota/company/operations/toyota-production-system

Great East Japan Earthquake: Real Issue for Toyota and their Suppliers

March 11th, 2011 was a very sad day for the world. A large earthquake with the magnitude of 9.0 occurred just off the east coast. This trigged a huge tsunami with waves as large as 40.5 meters to hit Japan. This tsunami caused devastated damage with 15,891 deaths and many more injuries. It destroyed 747,989 buildings. It caused damage to 7 nuclear power plants. 3 of the reactors exploded from a build-up of hydrogen gas causing further damage and deaths. This, also, lead to energy crisis, many people went without power. There was no longer enough power to supply all of Japan’s main island. The earthquakes damaged is estimated at a total of $14.5B to 34.6B.

Toyota was not sparred in this natural disaster and it caused global implications to their business for many months, but they able to ultimate recover, because of there operations management and unique relationship with suppliers. 1791 cars were immediately destroyed that were in a harbor. 12 Toyota dealerships were completely destroyed.

Toyota had to react quickly to this huge disaster. Their crisis management of this tragic event an seen as a success. Toyota put the life and safety first of their employees and supplies’ employees. On March 12th, Toyota suspended all operations. All operations meant that of their suppliers and subsidiaries as well. The following, Monday, they wanted to know if all their employees and supplies were safe and counted for. They dispatched emergency relief to Japan and created emergency relief teams.

“TMC convened a crisis-response meeting and quickly established a companywide countermeasures headquarters. The order of priorities was established as follows: 1) protecting human life and providing relief to victims, 2) aiding rapid recovery of disaster regions, and 3) resuming production.” (Toyota Corporate Website)

Measures to Restore Production

They immediately, on March 15th, started to work collaborated with suppliers to restore operations.

Works Cited:

- http://www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75years/text/leaping_forward_as_a_global_corporation/chapter5/section5/item1.html

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami

- http://www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75years/text/leaping_forward_as_a_global_corporation/chapter5/section5/item1_a.html

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