Management Strategy

Problem Statement

An operations improvement plan is an act of advancing all the interest of a business by restructuring the process of operations rather than tackling problems one at a time. In this paper am going to go about by referring at the previous and most recent issues at the Toyota Company and how the management is handling the challenges by putting new strategies into motion.

The Toyota Motor Corporation was established in 1933 with its headquarters housed in Japan, it was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda. Ever since its inception into the market Toyota has achieved a strong growth while placing their high quality products as their mainstay in the corporate world hence winning hearts of many customers. The company grew very first and its customer base expanded with a high increase in customer expectations, these are the some of the factors that caused the major crisis that hit the company relating to issues of safety and confidence.

The crisis hit on November 2 of 2009, when the company had to recall 3.8 million vehicles due to accelerator pedals being trapped by the floor mats, weeks later 400,000 more vehicles were recalled triggered a car collusion that took four lives in August 2009. (Greto) These adversely affected customers’ attitude as negatives rose up to 22% while the positive steadily fell to 78%. (Greto) More recalls came in on January 21, 2010 as millions of vehicles came back due to customer complaints with accelerator pedals sticking in cars without the floor mats. More recalls were experienced in 2010 from February to April with a string of problems. With these major recalls Starch data revealed that customer’s negative feelings rose by 19 points up to 41% while positive feelings fell by the same margin down to 59%. (Sapporo)

These heart breaking recall have led to a fresh beginning at the company which took a step forward by changing their motto to Moving Forward, an attempt by the company to win its customers back and reassure them of a brighter future. Starch data show that the strategy is working but at a gradual pace as more positive feeling have been gaining with an increase of 11 points that is from May 2010 to December 2011.

Whenever a problem occurs it is in the culture of the Toyota Company to determine the basic cause and take effective measures to rectify and improve o the challenges faced. In response to the Special Committee for Global Quality chaired by President Akio Toyoda who was part of the founding family was formed. The intended purpose of the committee was to give an ear to customers showing great commitment to a fundamental review of their attitudes towards operations and try to establish a good customer relations base with their entire consumer in all sectors of the economy. The results by the committee will be released to the public in due time after being verified and assessed by external advisors. The committee came up with the following objectives after their finds: Human resource development that reinforces a customer first approach, (Greto) Early Detection and Early Resolution based on customer choice, assessment by outsiders, product development focused on customer safety and confidence, and independence of quality management practices.

The committee implemented an array of approaches to address the worsening situation in gathering of information and inconsistence in sharing of information between regional offices and headquarters. It aims to reconstruct high level management processes thoroughly. Internal functions with newly appointed Chief Quality Officers represent the voice of the customer from across the world .Recovery plans are put in place as attendees carried out studies in Design quality, Manufacturing quality sales quality and service quality as solutions in accordance with customers opinions.

Organizational Position of the TMC Special Committee for Global Quality (as of march 30, 2010)

The president stated that the company will improve the safety decision making process and quicken their implementation by strengthening their systems of information gathering near customers. Secondly the company will with immediate effect increase the number of technical officers to enhance communication of technical information use to determine the necessity of the recalls and quality improvement, thirdly the use of EDRs and communication functions to lend hand in root cause analysis. These devices record acceleration braking and all other vehicle performances. The company too has created an integrated quality information system for strengthening information analysis and improving the safety decision making process. The firm has also come up with model for early detection and early resolution based on reinforced information gathering and Genchi and Genbutsu.

In July 2010, 5 training centers were opened to maintain quality and the company’s lifeline. The program majored in quality cultivation control experts and problems location specific, the program includes Basic and Expert training.

The committee concerted effort to review corporate approach towards reinforcement of customers ‘perspectives. A safety Guide Book a manual for safety education was revised as a briefing tool to communicate to the customers some of the basic things to do in case of an emergency or activities to carry out to avoid accident and some of the simple problems faced by the customers, An internal discussion on the issue of quality and recall issue was carried out to familiarize employees with the systems put in place and also to hear their views regarding new means of facing the challenges that the company was facing. Counteractions were developed after 13 issues were brought up, new bodies were formed as joint activities were pushed with suppliers the objective being to achieve high quality products

Toyota was faced with tough challenges but they have managed to come through in their most needed time as the new strategies put in place are bearing heavily, still far from their original competitive state but with a lot of zeal being shown by those in leadership a lot is expected from this famous company.

Data Collection Tools

The following are the data collection tools used;

Box and Whisker Plots: Used display multiple sets of variable elements on a single graph. For instance, in the figure below.

Check Sheets: Has several uses, is structured and prepared form for data collection and analysis

Control Charts: Graph used to study how a process changes over time

Design of experiment: A method for carrying out carefully planned experiments.

Histograms: A graph mostly used to show frequency distribution

Scatter diagram: Shows relationship between two variables

Stratification: Used to separate data gathered from many different sources to bring out a pattern

Survey: Data collected from specific groups of people about opinions

The flow charts were used in collection of data to clearly bring out the different stages take in the implementation process as it illustrates out shown in plain sight right from the first stage through to the last stage. I also used a histogram to relate the change both positive and negative feelings of the customers as it is easy to draw and understand.

With the new trends being developed it’s highly recommended that the company integrates new modern facilities to help reload some of the tasks on employees thus cutting cost spend on wages. Modern technologies have positive effects all round as the increase in both quality and quantity of produce. Emphasis is put on good customer relation management services as this provides the company with lifelong clients. The most important aspect to be considered is the safety of their clients

Reference

Greto, M. (2010). “Toyota: The Accelerator Crisis”, unpublished article for Thunderbird School of Global Management,

Piotrowski, C., & Guyette, R.. (2010). Toyota Recall Crisis: Public Attitudes on Leadership and Ethics. Organization Development Journal, 28(2), 89-97.