Operations Improvement Plan Implementation

Management Strategy 9

Abstract

This study will be evaluating an existing process within Toyota Company during the time of their accelerator crisis. The study will be a Continuation of the analysis of the organizational problem and the process which will be propose in the OIP by researching, collecting, and verifying further data. There will also be an Update on the before-and-after flowchart, focusing on the causes of the organizational problem. Also, the study will identify the types of quantitative or qualitative measures that will be employed in the measurement strategy.

Process Flow Diagram Update and Analysis.

To review the current problem statement: “In order for Toyota to have continuous improvement and excellent customer satisfaction achieved, the first step in any significant change effort is to bring together a knowledgeable group of people to address the basic implementation issues and establish a guiding direction. The PI steering team should be cross-functional, with members that understand the organization well, have a strong desire to participate, and see the team as critical to organizational success. Once the guiding process improvement plan is developed, the steering team must present it to the senior management team. Without top management’s understanding and approval, no plan will have the support it needs to succeed. Once approved, the role of the steering team is literally to steer implementation and generate course correction”. This updated and shortened problem statement places focus on the need for Toyota’s management to create the work culture and atmosphere that made them successful when they first established Toyota Company.

Information from the cause-and-effect diagram and the existence of a particular cause

Both cause and effect diagrams and the flow charts have identified the general problem that Toyota faced. The major cause of problem faced by the Toyota customers is the poor customer’s services (Heller & Darling, 2012). The identified cause for the poor customers services include use of outdated training, lack of oversight on the product output poor management decisions that is caused by limited resources independent thinking and slow response time of the decision makers.

The conflict between cause-and-effect diagram conflict and the flowchart

There is a conflict between the cause and effect diagram and the workflow diagram. In the cause and effect, the employee and management team of Toyota require inputs of training to improve quality services. On the other hand, the flow chart starting from the causes of the customers quality and flowing to the customers satisfaction. For instance, the connection of the lack of training and the final quality of the final products.

The cause-and-effect diagram and process steps that were not previously documented

Based on the research and the scope of the research, there were new process step discovered and as much research has been done around the causes identified in the fishbone diagram as needed. There are other factors like independent thinking and slow response time in decision making that affects the decision making process. They failed to handle customer complaints in a timely and customer accepted manner (Appendix C). This was not initially documented.

Further research on any causes identified in the cause-and-effect diagram

Some of the areas that require extra research is how the quality of the oversight on the product develops contribute to poor quality that affects the customer satisfactions. The fish bone has identified that Toyota manufacturing process failed to meet both the industry and corporate standards.

Key stakeholder and additional feedback

The Toyota Company can also benefit from the feedback and inputs from the other stakeholders like the dealers and suppliers. This is important because the main problem faced by the company is the company’s slow nature of responding to the customer.

Does any of this information change or impact your problem statement?

The problem statement will change slightly to incorporate the inputs of other stakeholders like distributors and suppliers. They need also to be incorporated in the training and decision making to improve the customer experience in using Toyota products. As more research is done and if any new information is found out, it will be represented in further diagram updates for the final project presentation to Toyota’s management.

Update the before-and-after flowchart you initially created in Unit 3(Appendix A)

The updated information has an impact on the problems statement as it incorporates the participation and input of the stakeholders in the decision making process (Heller & Darling, 2012). This means that effective customer services is based on combining different factors like having knowledgeable employees, active stakeholders to provide oversight and prompt decision making. Consequently lack of any of these factors leads to poor quality service to the customers.

Various measurement strategies that might be used for your OIP.

There are various quantitative and qualitative strategies that can be used by the organization to track measure effective of the identified strategies. This can be done by use of randomized control design that is important in evaluating the cause and effect between the intervention strategy and the outcome (Keller, Parameswaran & Jacob, 2011). In addition, Balanced Score card Qualitative data can be used to measure employee’s performance based on the units produced. These are the performance reports and statistics that are used to measure the performance of an employee. This requires identification of what is to be measured in the strategy and the process of data collection.

Develop a measurement strategy that enables you to measure the improvements your proposed process will offer.

In order to measure and provide improvement of a proposed process, Outcome design is employed. The specific tool would be the matched comparison design. This would involve establishing groups of employees to act as a control groups so that the other groups that is offered training and capacity building act as a variable group (Stevenson & Sum, 2009). This strategy is especially effective when the members can be matched on variables that are likely to affect the outcome of their work. In this case, workers’ productivity increases when they are exposed to professional training. It is also easy to apply in the work place since the conditions for working are similar in the various working station.

Identify what types of quantitative or qualitative measures you will employ in your measurement strategy.

For qualitative measurement of the strategy, it is proposed that I would measure the outcome and impact of the implementation as opposed as the activities done by the management or employees. This is important since it deals with the human soft side that cannot be effectively measured by quantitative means. For example, the impact of training can provide the best indication. The organization strategy can be measured if it is consistent with the environment. It needs to be able to exploit the current and the future opportunities while countering the threats.

The performance measurement of the strategy is selected in this process because it helps to monitor the implementation process and also determine the gap. It is therefore an effective way of establishing if the strategy is working and enable measuring of the accomplishment and not just the work that is done.

Summary

The assumption that an organization must act responsibly and ethically to enhance the outcome of a crisis, I found that Toyota questioned the standards we hold organizations to. So we must re-examine our theories of ethics for how we can hold companies to ethical standards. Johannasen, Valde, and Whedbee (2008) explains there are six habits to handle ethical issues well including: (1) solving ethical problems directly and reflectively, (2) interacting responsibly, (3) modeling integrity, (4) sharing organizational purposes and directions, (5) valuing stakeholder perspectives, and (6) practicing personal integrity.

The findings show Toyota’s few key components of the measurement strategy proposed will be to track the number of submitted ideas and to measure the increase or decrease in operational efficiency and quality of the approved idea. The results of this study indicate it would be beneficial for an organization in similar situations to build a strong reputation before a crisis occurs. Toyota created and maintained a strong reputation and was then able to rely and lean on its reputation to make it through its unintended accelerator crisis.

References

Russell, R.S., & Taylor, B.W. (2011). Operations management: Creating value along the supply chain (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN: 9780470525906

Heller, V. L., & Darling, J. R. (2012). Anatomy of crisis management: Lessons from the infamous toyota case. European Business Review, 24(2), 151-168.

Keller, K. L., Parameswaran, M. G., & Jacob, I. (2011). Strategic brand management: Building, measuring, and managing brand equity. Pearson Education India.

Stevenson, W. J., & Sum, C. C. (2009). Operations management (Vol. 8). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Johannesen, R. L., Valde, K. S., & Whedbee, K. E. Ethics in Human Communication. Longgrove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc., 2008.

Appendix A

Update the before-and-after flowchart you initially created in Unit 3

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Slow response time

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Outdated

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Inputs from stakeholders

Appendix B

Original Process Flow Chart

Appendix C

Flowchart of Ineffective Communication Process (Before)

No communication strategy discussed, designed, shared or implemented Problem identified Does not meet stakeholders expectations Company only responds to lawsuits and regulatory probes