Toyota Motor Manufacturing, U.S.A., Inc

Toyota Motor Manufacturing, U.S.A., Inc

Toyota is known for quality vehicles, produced the world over. However, what Toyota has done exceptionally well, is implement a manufacturing system so successful it has influenced not just auto making, but manufacturing standards across many other products all over the world. Through the Toyota Production System (TPS) Toyota has managed to cut costs, reduce time to market, and dramatically improve quality. This allows Toyota to be one of the few companies able to compete simultaneously as a premium and as a low cost producer. There are several important aspects to TPS. These relate to either cost reduction, or quality improvement, or both. The underlying philosophy of TPS is a relentless desire to continually find and remove waste – wasted time, wasted money, and wasted material. This attitude results in continual improvement of quality and efficiency. Some of the mechanisms for this improvement are listed below:

* JIT (Just in Time) – Just in time inventory control reduces the amount of inventory in a system to its bare minimum. Material is only provided when needed. JIT can eliminating WIP inventories results in reduced holding costs. JIT also improves quality as it allows for quick detection of quality problems.

* Jidoka – jidoka insisted on building in quality in the production process and condemned any deviation from value-addition as waste.

* Andon – Andon describes the notice board used for quality control. This device quickly informs a supervisor of only what he or she needs to know to take immediate actions and thereby allows a small number of supervisors to control a large area.

* Heijunka – This is Toyota’s terminology describing the idea of distributing volume and different specifications evenly over the span of production such as a day, a week, and a month.

* Kaizen – Kaizen literally means “changing something for the better.” The object of change usually includes the standardized...