Delamere Vineyard

What are the order winners and qualifiers for Toyota?

The winner for Toyota is the ability to provide consistent quality. Toyota strives to maximize quality and has a system in place to disallow inferior products from going out. The order qualifiers for Toyota are low cost operation, which results in lower pricing, flexibility, and on-time delivery. Flexibility allows them to make the cars in the specific styles and volumes to meet consumer demand, and are able to meet each consumer's needs. On-time Delivery allows them to have the cars ready and available when the consumer wants them.

How does the Toyota Production System support or fail to provide these competitive capabilities?

The first way TPS provides these competitive capabilities is through the elimination of waste. The first principle of this is their JIT (Just-In-Time) principle of production. This principle states that the company should produce only what is needed, only how much is needed, and only when it is needed. The Kanban card system ensures that Toyota is only producing the parts that are needed are being produced, minimizing waste.

The second way is through consistent quality. Toyota uses the principle of Jidoka for this, which states that any production problems should instantly be self-evident and the line should stop producing whenever problems are detected. Toyota also encourages the continual improvement of the production process to maximize quality even further, which is the principle of Kaizen. Additionally, the QC department sets high quality standards and sends back any cars not meeting the criteria, another method that will help maximize the quality of the cars shipped to the consumers.

The third is flexibility. Toyota can reliably deliver a vast number and variety of cars to its customers. Planning process based on JIT principles to produce the appropriate number, mix and variety of cars based on consumer demand. There is also volume flexibility in this...