Why you decided to choose this resource?
I chose this resource to find out the secrets behind The Toyota Way. Toyota is one of the world’s leading companies in automotive especially in the US. Its chief market share is mostly in fuel efficient cars. I wanted to discover how the company leads in market share and how it treats its employees. Also, the company recently paid one of the largest fines in US history for lying to investigators. The complaints were mainly due to random speed increases during normal driving and not when the foot was on the accelerator. I did more digging to determine how Toyota responded to this.
What did you learn from it?
The resource interviews top employees in the organization to determine the “Toyota Way”. It also shows how other firms have adopted Toyota’s approach to reliability and customer satisfaction. In factories around the world, Toyota consistently makes the highest-quality cars with the fewest defects of any competing manufacturer, while using fewer man-hours, less on-hand inventory, and half the floor space of its competitors.
In further research, I learned that Toyota cited the reasons for the company recalls were due to neglecting customers. Today, Toyata has spent billions of dollars trying to get back to the approach that made them famous. They have since altered it to pay more attention to employees even if it is a more added cost.
Key points
- Eliminating wasted time and resources
- Building quality into workplace systems
- Finding low-cost but reliable alternatives to expensive new technology
- Producing in small quantities
- Turning every employee into a quality control inspector
How are you using what you learned?
I am personally reviewing the news reports and the 14 main principles to see how they can be applied to our firm.
How can we as a company or individuals in the company use this?
The executive team can use this resource to make sure we stick to proving guiding principles on management. This resource also contains a lot of good information on quality of products and responding to customer complaints.
Source
- Title: The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer
- Author: Jeffrey Liker
- Links: 14 Principles PDF : http://icos.groups.si.umich.edu/Liker04.pdf
- Links: Amazon : http://www.amazon.com/The-Toyota-Way-Management-Manufacturer/dp/0071392319
- Links: Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Toyota_Way
[slideshare id=381417&doc=the-toyota-way-1209560536107588-9]