Research Paper on Toyota's Strategies for Global Success: Investigating Operations

This write out investigates the operations of Toyota global as far as its logistics, product development overall operations are concerned. Toyota happens to be among the leading manufacturer of automotive vehicles in the world. The company was founded almost a century ago(1937) and has managed to remain competitive for the years that it has been in existence (Sobek et al., 1998). This essay explores and explains the strategies that the company has been using to stay ahead. The article will examine the processes that Toyota considers when introducing new products to the market, how the company ensures 5hatvits clientele is satisfied, and how the company manages to stay ahead of the competition. Note that Toyota has been the leading manufacturer of vehicles for quite a long time until recently, in the year 2016, Volkswagen managed to outdo Toyota in terms of sales volumes. This defeat doesn't make Toyota any less of a manufacturer and distributor or motor vehicles. The essay will dig into the operations of the Japanese firm to examine its production methodologies and marketing mix. The focus is on Toyota because the company features in the list of top manufacturers, and it must have some exceptions strategies that it uses to stay ahead.

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Toyota's management combines six principles of management to generate an exceptional product development System (Sobek et al., 1998). The pillars fall under two groups, socio-managerial strategies and standardization practices. The social-based principles are a mutual adjustment, tight supervision, and integral leadership, while the standardization pillars are standard skills, the conventional process of working, and standard design practices (Sobek et al., 1998). These mechanisms are closely linked to produce a top-notch product development system that maximizes functional coordination while still ensuring the development of operational expertise. Toyota combines the use of a very formal system with modifications and twists to achieve unlimited flexibility on each project so that individual projects can benefit from other projects within the firm (Sobek et al., 1998).

The automotive manufacturer- Toyota- uses some rigid procedures that limit the use of cross-functional establishments. Such rigidity comes with a lot of drawbacks, and Toyota has found a way to eliminate these drawbacks by adding several twists to the rigid operational rules and standards. Toyota uses writing as a channel for cross-functional communication (Sobek et al., 1998). This communication ensures that each party gets the other party's point of view and calls for mutual adjustment of the coordinating parties. While written communication does not have the richness of information possessed by other forms, such as face to face meetings, Toyota believes that written communication is enough for coordination between times and that it saves a lot of time on both sides of the coordination. Toyota does not assign personnel to dedicated teams; a large percentage of staff are integral parts of functional areas and are assigned projects as they come. When a meeting is necessary, written reports preceded the meeting to ensure that the meeting takes the shortest time possible (Sobek et al., 1998).

Toyota's product development engages instructive supervisors within teams. Managers are involved in great detail to details of engineering design such that the subordinates must seek supervision on every step of the product design process (Spear & Bowen, 1999). The role of the supervisors at Toyota is not only to lead but also to fine-tune the designs done by their subordinates. Supervisors big product development teams are working engineers; they don't merely oversee the engineering function, they sharpen their knowledge and skills and stay ahead of up to date technology, the supervisors participate in the creative process directly (Mullins, 2016). At Toyota, supervisors don't merely provide answers; they stimulate thinking and creativity in all the members of the product development teams (Sobek et al., 1998).

Toyota makes use of integrative leadership in its product development teams. Chief engineers have a small number of assistants to help them manage overall and long-term projects. While the beginners do not exercise authority and power on their subordinates, they are responsible for analyzing and overseeing product designs, as a requirement, they must be overly competent and experienced in design work (Sobek et al., 1998). The fact that they wield no absolute authority and power prevents them from unanimously making destructive decisions. The chief engineer I responsible for seeing the bigger picture, but the other functional members of the product development team are responsible for restraining his/her zeal.

Toyota standardizes the skills in its staff by offering training within the company. This standardization means that all the members of the product development team have the same skill sets. Knowing what the other functional part of the group is capable of help to tailor-make requests to them and expectations from them (Sobek et al., 1998). This knowledge makes coordination very easy. Toyota shuffles its engineers within single functions; this promotes skill perfection and standardization of work. Therefore the output from every functional group is easily predictable to the other groups involved in the same project. Over time the engineers can coordinate across functions with absolutely no difficulty. Experienced engineers are occasionally shuffled to areas outside their expertise to prevent the creation of rigid functional chimneys (Spear & Bowen, 1999).

Toyota has an inbuilt system if setting flexible working standards. Projects are coordinated pre-programmed methodology such that each group knows what to expect from the other group with little or no communication at all. This coordination ensures consistency in work done, and provides a framework standard operating procedure and reducing the time spend under each specific task (Sobek et al., 1998). Unlike other firms, standard operating modules at Toyota sustained by the technicians that use them and not by central boards of leadership or oversight. Consequently, the persons who use the particular procedures understand what they desire in the output.

Toyota incorporates living design standards in its product development (Sobek et al., 1998). The company still keeps the old school engineering checklist that plays a crucial role in optimizing designs and guiding engineers in intensive design reviews on every product. While other companies have abandoned the practice of standardized plans, Toyota still uses them to maximize product development. Toyota doesn't just present design rules to its product development functions; rather, it uses the checklists to show comprehensive capabilities as comprehended by the design teams explicitly, these checklists and standards are updated with every other product or project (Sobek et al., 1998). The company features continuous overlapping product regimes that play an essential role in keeping designs and standards at par with recent developments in terms of technological advancements. To achieve this constant product cycles, the company introduces new models now and then and keeps renewing former models.

These key pillars of product development differentiate Toyota from the other hundreds of manufacturers in the manufacturing business. The strategy, though at times appearing to be moving against the prevailing trends, is passed down via training such that the culture is maintained. Consequently, product quality and development remain to be one of a kind. The three levels of standardization boost each other in product development while providing room for flexibility and inclusivity. Without the coordination between the several mechanisms, each would have little or no impact on its own (Sobek et al., 1998).

Toyota's focus is not only on the design teams from within, but the company also has other parameters to consider, and it analyzes them in parallelism with the six pillars of product development.

Toyota has a practice of establishing customer-defined value. As a concept of lean manufacturing, this helps Toyota to separate value-added from waste. The firm also ensures that it front-loads the product development process to give room for alternate implementations (Sobek et al., 1998). They create product development processes that are leveled to improve process flow and reduce wastage. The firm exercise vigorous standardization that keeps product variations to a minimum and builds in flexibility for all possible outcomes. The company also employs a chief engineer system in conjunction with organized, functional expertise to give provisions for cross-function coordination (Sobek et al., 1998). Also, Toyota sets to develop technical competence in its engineers while integrating their suppliers and fostering learning and continuous improvement. The company does not lag in the creation of a culture that supports excellence and perpetual growth. To aid in top quality production, Toyota is continually adopting technology to support its staff its processes, it aligns the human factor of 5hebcomoany using simplified communication channels, and it uses powerful tools to standardize and ensure learning within the organization.

Toyota's lean manufacturing processes demand very specific deliveries. The firm requires small-sized frequent and timely deliveries. To achieve this, Toyota uses network logistics, and the firm organizes its suppliers in groups or clusters from which supplies are collected by trucks and delivered to operation sites. The trucks pick up parts on a milking route (a process in which struck goes through several pick up stations picking particular supplies from each) and delivered to a regional cross-dock where the parts are sorted and loaded in containers (INEAK.COM, 2009). The boxes are loaded onto trailers and transported to the production facilities where the trucks drop the containers in numbered lots. The containers stay locked until the production activities call for their opening.

The Toyota Production Model demands guaranteed constant supplies (INEAK.COM, 2009). Toyota forms partnerships with suppliers to deliver the parts on scheduled intervals and on-demand. To facilitate collaboration, Toyota uses the network logistics model. The network logistics model enables Toyota to run a flowless system to coordinate its supplies and deliveries. The network consists of the suppliers, cross docks, and the Toyota production centers. The three members of the network are linked by a collection of tracks that are always on the move ferrying parts from suppliers or Ferring empty containers back to the suppliers (INEAK.COM, 2009).

Toyota designs the network logistics by first considering the locations of each of the suppliers to determine which suppliers are in proximity to each other (INEAK.COM, 2009). The suppliers form clusters from which one truck can pick parts on the same route. From the suppliers, the trailer delivers the assorted parts to the nearest cross- dock where they are offloaded, and the truck will pick empty containers and shop them to the suppliers on its return trip. The parts are then grouped according to the cross docks and loaded into containers of specific designations. These containers are then picked up by trucks meant to deliver truckloads to a particular production or assembly site. Toyota adopts the principle of frequent small deliveries; this ensures that the production centers receive small batches of deliveries from each supplier daily. The logistics are complex and challenging, especially given the volu...