Essay Example onToyota Motor Manufacturing Canada: Canada's Auto-Making Powerhouse

Introduction

Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada is an auto-maker based in Canada. It is a fully owned company subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corporation, whose parent company is Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America division (Rutherfor et al., .2010). The company has its operations at Cambridge, Ontario, and West Woodstock. And the current president of TMMC Fred Volf of Canada. Furthermore, the plant engages in the production of the Lexus RX and Toyota RAV4 automobiles (Luria, 2018).

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The company has been in operation since 1988 and is composed of three plants, namely; North, West, and South, with each plant specializing on a specific line of vehicles. All plants stick to the Toyota manufacturing procedures, widely known as the Toyota Production System (TPS). Moreover, during its inception year, the company produced 153 vehicles, and in current times the company in all three plants holds the capacity to produce 600,000 automobiles. Consequently, TMMC employs more than 9,000 workers (Chiarini, 2015).

TMMC has won several awards since its inception. In 2005, it was accorded an award for topping on Canada's Top 100 Employers by MediaCorp Canada Inc.; furthermore, it had been featuring in MacLean's news magazine and also recognized as the Waterloo Area's Top Employers. Moreover. The company prides itself on Platinum Plant Quality Award and also the appreciation by JD Power as having advanced assembly lines in all of North America CITATION Tom17 \l 1033 (Toma, 2017).

Hazard Controls

Warehousing activities in TMMC, the West plant creates many health and safety risks. Therefore, failure to manage the company may experience unprecedented consequences such as high employee turnover, underperformance by the staff, injuries and illness, lost working days and legal issues, and at the extreme scenario, results in fatalities.

Under the Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) and regulations, designed by the Ministry of Labor, Training and Skills Development, Ontario asserts that supervisors are the representative of the employers in the places of work and their main functions apart from overseeing the projects, is to ensure the health and safety of the workers (Jason, 2007). The terms apply equally to the warehouse supervisors in the West Plant. Safety measures must protect the workers from warehouse hazards and enable them to work in a safe environment.

Vehicle safety is paramount in the automobile warehouse, where the forklifts, lift trucks, and other moving machines to prevent crush injuries. Most of the accidents that occur are due to reverse driving at the warehouse (Mroszczyk, 2009). Therefore, to ensure safety, some controls relating to the vehicles are enforced by the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada. These controls include: staff who have received proper training on the vehicles and have sufficient experiences are allowed to drive, spends limits is a factor that is taken in strict consideration in the warehouse with signs placed strategically, aisles are kept free of obstructions and zero-tolerance policies against dangerous driving.

Fire safety is an essential fire hazard control. The West plant warehouse is open and kindling; thus, in case of fire, the likelihood of spreading fast is high. Besides damaging the warehouse and injuring people, it results in loss of expensive resources, and production time is lost. Recovering from a fire incident is also tricky (Baker, 2013). Controlling such incidents is critical in the TMMC warehouse. Therefore, the company engages in fire drills to ensure that escape routes are practical, knowledge of the exit locations, and assembly points are performed regularly. Moreover, fire alarms and hydrants are monitors n a regular basis to basis to ensure proper working condition.

Employees of TMMC are provided with Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) to supplement other control measures. Inside the warehouse, all employees and visitors are made to wear appropriate PPE, such as hard-hats, reflector jackets, safety shoes, which are anti-slip and steel-capped to protect from impact and crush hazards. Also, goggles and hearing protection are provided to ensure the safety of eyes and ears, respectively (Koster et al. 2011).

References

Baker, J. (2013). he relationship between fire damage and fire safety management. Doctoral dissertation, Loughborough University.

Chiarini, A. a. (2015). World-class manufacturing by Fiat. Comparison with Toyota production system from strategic management, management accounting, operations management, and performance measurement dimension. International Journal of Production Research, 590-606.

De Koster, R. B. (2011). Accidents happen: The influence of safety-specific transformational leadership, safety consciousness, and hazard reducing systems on warehouse accidents. Journal of Operations Management, 29.

Jason, L. (2007). Exploring the Spectrum of Labor Management Participation within Safety Regimes: Occupational Health and Safety in Ontario (Canada), Sweden, and the United States. Int'l J. Comp. Lab. L. & Indus, 23.

Luria, D. A. (2018). Automobile production in Canada and implications for Canada's 2025 passenger vehicle greenhouse gas standards. Working Paper.

Mroszczyk, J. (2009). Safety Engineering The Future of the Profession In the US. Professional Safety, 54.

T. Rutherfor, P. P. (2010). Global, Local, or Hybrid?: Evidence of Adaptation among Japanese Automobile Plants in Japan, the United States, and Canada. Environments: a journal of interdisciplinary studies, 29.

Toma, S.-G. a. (2017). Total quality management and business excellence: the best practices at Toyota Motor Corporation. Amfiteatru Economic Journal, 566-580.