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Continuous Improvement Plan For Toyota Business Plan
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INTRODUCTION
Business needs to manage the different operations and continuous improvement in these are essential for running any firm properly. Toyota is considered as the case company for this report and the SWOT analysis will be focusing on its OM Principles (Wada, 2020). Toyota is one of the leading automobile manufacturers offering a wide range of products to their customers.
SWOT ANALYSIS FOR TOYOTA
Swot analysis is one of the most effective methods that are being used by the businesses for identifying their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. SWOT analysis for Toyota such as:
Strength:
- Toyota is having an effective market image which is an important strength.
- The company has strong human resources throughout the world. Highly skilled and professional employees help the company in managing all the business operations in an effective manner.
- The innovative culture of the firm is also a strength that helps them in generating better ideas. This has helped the company to make great changes in their operations from practical management style to lean manufacturing (Balinado and Tri Prasetyo, 2020).
- Technological advancement of the company is also a great strength that helps them in being more productive.
- Effective global supply chain is also an advantage for Toyota.
Weaknesses:
- Higher dependence on suppliers is a major weakness for the company. If the company faces issues delay in delivery then overall operation management is affected (Madoh al.2019).
- Negative publicity is also a major issue for the company.
- The issues of product recall in the recent years are a significant issue for the firm due to low quality of the products.
- The hierarchical organisation structure prevents the flexibility in the regional operation management and this is also a weakness for the firm.
Opportunities:
- Toyota is having a great opportunity to expand their business to new developing nations such as China, India and many more.
- The company can use the green technology approach
- Using automation systems effectively for supply chain management.
- Improving the operational efficiency
Threats:
- Competition faced by the company in the industry.
- Threat related to exchange rates is an important issue
- High price of the raw material is also an important factor
- Fluctuations in the prices of fuels, revising emission standards and rising cost of raw material
ISSUES FROM SWOT ANALYSIS
Three different issues which are being identified are mentioned below:
Issue 1: Issues related to the need for continuous development. On the basis of the opportunities identified, it is important for Toyota to focus on improving the operational efficiency. It can be said that continuous improvement in the operation management is an important issue.
Issue 2: Quality and recall issues, Toyota is facing the issue related to recall of millions of products and this is because of the quality issues which needs to be addressed. It is very important to work on their quality management so that they can overcome this weakness (Wada, 2020).
Issue 3: Toyota is facing issues related to high cost of suppliers. On the basis of the threats it can be said that Toyota can make changes in their production and designing to address this issue of high cost of suppliers.
CONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Continuous Improvement Plan for Toyota using Deming PDCA Cycle Model
For this improvement plan the researcher would be focusing on using the PDCA cycle model.
PDCA is a four step model which is being used for carrying out effective changes. While applying this model one needs to focus on all the four steps which are plan, do, check and act.
Application of PDCA Model:
- Plan: Toyota must focus on identifying new suppliers and developing better relations with them. This will help them in having a large number of suppliers globally which would help them in reducing the cost of suppliers.
- Do: when the company will be having large options then they should compare the costs of suppliers and then trade with them.
- Check: Toyota should ensure that they get the products at the lowest possible cost without compromising the quality (Itsuki, 2021).
- Act: If the company found that the supplier is costing high then they should switch to another one.
Continuous Improvement for Toyota using Six Sigma Process Methodology
This continuous improvement is based on the weakness of Toyota that is quality issues towards the recall of their products.
Six-sigma is a set of techniques and tools for process improvements. This model involves five phases which are define, measure, analyse, improve and control as given below.
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Define- Quality management issues
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Measure
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Analyse
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Improve
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Control
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The company needs to make improvements in their production methods so that they can develop high quality products and the human resource is having a major role to play.
The objective is to improve the quality of the products manufactured by Toyota
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The issues related to quality are the weakness for the company and this is affecting in a negative manner.
Major key steps or inputs- resources:
? The company should focus on redesigning their products
? Testing should be made more accurate.
? Safety tools in their products would be enhanced.
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The identified root cause is the increasing technical complexities in the vehicles.
If the company would be making improvements related to their quality management then it will have a positive impact on reputation.
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The company should also focus on using high quality products only.
For measuring the results, the company should focus on standardizing their testing system, quality assurance and safety related to the usage of their products.
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The company should focus on developing regular audit programs for ensuring the quality management in sustaining performance.
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Continuous Improvement for Toyota’s using General Action Plan Template
In this improvement plan the researcher had developed the SMART objectives. SMART objectives are those objectives which are specific, measurable, achievable, and relevant and time bound.
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OM Principle Applied
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Smart and Measurable Objective
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Resources Required
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Timescale for Review
Point/Follow-Up and corrective action date
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Kaizen
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Offering training to the employees.
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Huge amount required for offering better training and time
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6 months
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Increasing the production by 10 % in the next 1 year.
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Human resources must use capital and give time
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1 year
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Enhancing operational efficiency by 10% within 1 year
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Human resource, better strategic decisions, capital (Money required for using new technologies)
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1 year
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CONCLUSION
In this report the researcher had completed the SWOT analysis of Toyota and on the basis of it, the improvement plan was developed to address the issues identified. Better implementation can help the company in enhancing their operational efficiency.
References
Balinado, J.R.O. and Tri Prasetyo, Y., 2020, September. The Impact of 5S Lean Tool to Service Operation: A Case Study in Toyota Dasmarinas-Cavite Service Operations. In 2020 The 6th International Conference on Industrial and Business Engineerin (pp. 185-190).
Itsuki, H., 2021. Evaluation on Changes of Strategy and Strategic Direction in Toyota Motor Company, Japan. Journal of Strategic Management, 5(1), pp.20-29.
Madoh, A., Alenazi, J., Alkhamees, L. and Panwar, A., 2019. Case Study on Market Mix Strategies of Toyota Motor Corporation. Asia Pacific Journal of Management and Education (APJME), 2(3), pp.70-78.
Wada, K., 2020. Computerization of the Management of Toyota as a Group.In The Evolution of the Toyota Production System (pp. 145-158).Springer, Singapore.
Wada, K., 2020. The Emergence of Flow Production at Toyota.In The Evolution of the Toyota Production System (pp. 115-132).Springer, Singapore.
