Essay on Toyota Business Operations Follow Up

Introduction

Since 2009, Toyota Company has been forced to recall more than 10 million vehicles. At the same time, the firm’s sales in the US have plummeted. The main reason why the firm recalled its vehicles were quality concerns raised by the customers (Camuffo and Wilhelm 2016). For example, in 2014, when Toyota Company recalled circa 1.75 million vehicles globally, it was because the customers complained that the vehicles had brake problems and other glitches that posed a fire risk (Camuffo and Wilhelm 2016). In the same period, when Toyota Company faced quality concerns over its line of vehicles, other companies such as Ford and GM have continually produced better, superior and high quality concerns (Hellen and Darling 2012). Arguably, this is surprising for a company that often gets considered as the first to implement total quality management practices in its operations. Toyota’s chief executive attributed the surge in the quality concerns raised on Toyota vehicles to the rapid growth experienced by the company (Tennert 2014). In 2007, Toyota overtook GM as the world’s largest automobile manufacturer (Tennert 2014). However, the rapid expansion experienced by the company should not get used as an excuse for its vehicle’s quality shortcomings. This report presents a robust discussion on how company-wide operations can be introduced into the Toyota Company. The paper also evaluates the strategies that can be used by Ford and GM to gain the market share lost by Toyota.

The Kaizen Process

The Kaizen process is arguably synonymous with Toyota. It is a Japanese word that means being fully aware of what can be improved in an enterprise, how it can be improved and the employees who can contribute to the improvement. Kaizen is critical to the Toyota way or Lean operations. Unlike other continuous improvement processes that use either top-down edicts or radical changes to initiate transformation, Kaizen relies on cooperation, collaboration, and commitment from all the workers (Stewart 2018). Toyota developed the Kaizen process intending to eliminate waste, minimise defects, boosting productivity, promoting innovation and encouraging employee accountability (Stewart 2018). In Toyota, the Kaizen process is enshrined in three key principles: five’s (5S), Thinking People System and five whys.

5S

5S refers to the Japanese words Seiton, Seiri, Shitsuke, Seiso and Seiketsu (Stewart 2018). The English translations of these words are: sustain, standardise, shine, set in order and sort. Toyota encourages their employees to employ the 5S principles not only in their work but also in their lives (Stewart 2018). Seiri (sort) refers to the elimination of all the items that are not needed in the workplace. However, for sort to work, it is imperative to define first what is not needed in the workplace. After the unnecessary items have got removed in the workplace, they subsequently get subjected to a further review, where it gets determined what will get done to them. Seiton (set in order) principally refers to the classification of all the needed items into their correct places. In Toyota, each tool has a specific place of storage. For Toyota, this step is critical since all the tools that the employees need should be readily available and accessible for use.

Seiso (shine) refers to the cleaning of the various tools used in the manufacturing process every day. The main aim of Seiso is usually to not only clean but also to avoid dirt. The cleaning of the various parts used not only brings order in the company’s operations but also demonstrates some sense of responsibility to the environment. Seiketsu (standardise) seeks at making the steps delineated above a company habit. In a bid to ensure the standardisation of its processes, Toyota continually engages in initiatives geared at creating awareness on the 5S and establishing precise rules that the employees should follow out in carrying out the 5S (Stewart 2018). Lastly, Shitsuke (sustain) refers to self-discipline. This means that all the employees at Toyota should continuously apply 5s to improve the company’s processes.

The five whys

Toyota Company continually encourages its workers to be involved in the formulation and development of new ideas so that they can create the best solutions to the various challenges and issues encountered in the workplace (Suh 2017). The Kaizen process requires the continuous assessment and application of logic in determining what should get done (Suh 2017). As a result, every planned improvement usually gets evaluated with the ‘question ‘why?

The five whys system became more popular in the 1970s as Toyota embarked on finding solutions to the various problems that the firm faced (Suh 2017). The five whys system is premised on the idea that the solution to a problem is usually based on an idea that further takes you to another ‘why’, and so on. In Toyota, different techniques are used in developing the five whys. The most common ones are the tabular format and the Ishikawa diagram. The Ishikawa diagram presents a graphical representation of the causes of a given problem. And it is usually aimed at discovering the solution to a given problem.

Thinking People System

The Kaizen process depends on not only the company experts but also on every person at the company. Arguably, this is because Toyota believes that every employee can contribute to the company’s success through his/her skills and knowledge. TPS also not only allows the workers to do their assigned tasks but also to devise solutions to the company’s problems (Suh 2017). Partly, this why in all the mornings at Toyota Company there are usually reunions that are geared at understanding the needs of the employees better.

TPS also calls for employees in Toyota to be fully aware of the importance of the various activities that they perform in the company. TPS also calls for the employees to think why various procedures are performed in the company (Suh 2017). Overall, TPS makes Toyota Company employees feel valued and appreciated.

How Toyota Company can refine the Kaizen Process

Arguably, the Kaizen process has allowed the Toyota Company to reap innumerable benefits. Notably, the process has helped Toyota Company improve on efficiency and work satisfaction, foster innovation and creativity, and reduce waste among others. Agreeably, the Kaizen process has been a crucial pillar in Toyota’s market share expansion. However, in the last few months, Toyota has had to recall more than nine million vehicles, and this necessitates a rethinking of its Kaizen process.

Firstly, Toyota Company needs to realise that it is challenging implementing the Kaizen process into other existing systems. In the last few years, Toyota Company has been involved in a series of mergers and acquisitions. The company has subsequently tried to indiscriminately implement the Kaizen process into the operations of the acquired firms, which has proved considerably problematic (Bowen and Zheng 2015). Implementing the Kaizen process requires for the complete transformation of an enterprise’s management systems. Arguably, this is what has proved a big hurdle to Toyota as the company has constantly tried to implement the Kaizen process in the acquired firms (Bowen and Zheng 2015). In this regard, Toyota Company needs to allow for open communication process as it implements the Kaizen process in the acquired entities. It should allow the employees of the ‘acquired firms and business’ to provide their views on the need for implementing the Kaizen process.

There is also a need for Toyota Company to retrain its workers on the Kaizen process. The more than nine million vehicles that Toyota has had to recall in the last few months have been because of quality concerns. Ironically, the Kaizen process gears at bolstering the quality of Toyota company vehicles. This shows that the employees are not well trained in the Kaizen process (Bowen and Zheng 2015). Toyota Company can organise for some of the employees to go out and take extra training on the kaizen process. The company can also ensure that new employees undergo training on the kaizen philosophy in addition to their usual training.

Besides, because of the voluminous and involving nature of the Kaizen training, most of the employee usually find it tiring and tedious learning the Kaizen process under a considerably smaller time frame. Toyota Company can extend the amount of time allocated to training employees on the kaizen process. Conclusively, this will ensure that the employees are familiar with all the practical details of the Kaizen process. The short period allocated to training employees on the Kaizen process meant that most of them did not grasp the philosophy well. As a result, it was difficult for them implementing the Kaizen philosophy, since it is challenging for an individual to implement a concept that he/she does not understand well.

The ‘five why’s tenet’ that underpins the Kaizen process has some tenets that need to be refined. Notably, the five why’s encourages individuals to find the root cause of a given problem. By encouraging the employees to find the root cause of the problem, this means that they may leave out other factors that might also have contributed to the given problem (Andrews et al., 2011). This can be linked to the myriads of quality concerns that Toyota Company has faced in the last few years. Toyota has had difficulties in remedying the problems because the company’s focus has been on the root causes of the given problems. In this regard, Toyota Company needs to adopt a wholesome approach in searching for solutions to the problems it faces (Andrews et al., 2011). Admittedly, this will only require a slight adjustment of the five why process. This will allow Toyota Company to discover other solutions, causes and factors that the company might have otherwise missed if it continued using the ‘five why’s’ unadulterated.

Although the Kaizen process is enshrined on employee cooperation, collaboration and involvement, this is not entirely the case in Toyota Company. The Kaizen process only applies to the employees based in the company’s production plants. It does not apply to the company’s sales and marketing employees and customer service representatives. When these employees are seemingly disentangled from the company’s culture, it is challenging garnering useful customer insights since they are the ones who are in direct contact with the customers (Andrews et al., 2011).

References

Andrews, A.P., Simon, J., Tian, F. and Zhao, J., 2011. The Toyota crisis: an economic, operational and strategic analysis of the massive recall. Management Research Review, 34(10), pp.1064-1077.

Bowen, S.A. and Zheng, Y., 2015. Auto recall crisis, framing, and ethical response: Toyota’s missteps. Public Relations Review, 41(1), pp.40-49.

Camuffo, A. and Wilhelm, M., 2016. Complementarities and organizational (Mis) fit: a retrospective analysis of the Toyota recall crisis. Journal of Organization Design, 5(1), p.4.

Heller, V.L. and Darling, J.R., 2012. Anatomy of crisis management: lessons from the infamous Toyota Case. European Business Review, 24(2), pp.151-168.

Stewart, J., 2018. The Toyota Kaizen continuum: A practical guide to implementing lean. Productivity Press.

Suh, Y., 2017. Knowledge Network of Toyota. Annals of Business Administrative Science, 16(2), pp.91-102.

Tennert, F., 2014. An attributional analysis of corporate reporting in crisis situations: The 2010 Toyota recall. Journal of Communication Management, 18(4), pp.422-435.