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Toyota in 2009
The history of Toyota is one of ingenuity. It is easy to notice that Toyota has had such a great success in a vertical market because its leaders have been able to look at the vehiclemarket from a different perspective. We will begin by evaluating what sets Toyota apart from the competition.
Toyota has had the unique ability of looking beyond traditional production methods. Werecall that in the 30’s-70’s, the standard was to do production through the assembly line. We can see that Toyota has had the ability to notice that just having economies of scale is not good enoughfor vehicle manufacturers. As a result, Toyota has:
* Held employees accountable of their mistakes and humanized their jobs (by introducing quality circles) to make work interesting, and thereforeimprove productivity.
* Decreased the number of specialists for quality control, which improved the bottom line
* Decreased dependency on mass production, which enabled them to adjust toconsumer preferences
Toyota’s achievements come as a result of caring more about how their system works and not about how the system brings in money. We can also highlight more of Toyota’s efficiency byrecognizing the value of the Kanban system. Having the Kanban system at such an early time has enabled Toyota to minimize the amount of money they have tied in inventory.
The use of the Kanbansystem also points out another unique competency of Toyota. The Japanese manufacturer has maintained a close relationship with its suppliers, which has enabled it to bring higher quality parts at a cheaperprice, even when compared with American manufacturers in their domestic market. We could even that noticed that as late as the closing of the last decade, that Toyota was able to shake off therecession compared to its American competitors.
Despite Toyota’s ability to surpass its competitors in efficiency and reliability, Toyota has needed to improve. An important defect in Toyota is its...