Product Identification Toyota

Process Identification

Summary

In the early 2000’s Toyota was becoming a powerhouse in the car manufacturing industry. They were growing so fast that many competitors adopted Toyota’s Production System also known as TPS. Toyota’s revenues grew tremendously in a short time frame and the way they were reducing production cost made them number one in the industry by the end of 2009. They were so focused on making money that they lost focus on quality and safety issues. The Accelerator Crisis had to deal with the recall of defective cars that wasn’t safe to drive. This crisis brought a bad image on Toyota and fees that they didn’t want to pay.

Apply the principles and techniques of operations management to the identification of candidate processes.

The purpose of operations management is to use a company’s capital and human knowledge to convert raw materials into a finish product. In the case study the crisis was caused by poor planning by the Operations Department, defective vehicles leaving the Manufacturing Department, and buying cheap insufficient goods by the Distribution and Logistics Department. The change of management was a big mistake. They changed from a customer first focus to a profit first focus. In the mid 90’s Toyota had a strong history in making reliable and high quality cars all over the world. By the beginning of the early 2000’s management started to shift in the wrong direction. The philosophy that many competitors were trying to copy went out the window. They lost focus on their philosophy and strayed away from their business model. They were trying to increase profits by minimizing operating cost by cutting corners. I believe it was a great ideal to incorporate the Toyota Production System but it was used in the wrong way. TPS was designed to eliminate all unnecessary waste from the production and manufacturing process. The objective was to make vehicles ordered by customers in the quickest and most effective way while reducing...