TOYOTA'S STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT

Toyota's Strategic Management

Toyota's Strategic Management

Answer 1

Just-in-time administration mentions to a production administration philosophy founded on producing only what is required, when it is required, and in the quantity that is needed. Just-in-time production is also referred to as lean manufacturing, demand flow manufacturing, stockless production, or pull-system manufacturing. The result of just-in-time production is that no goods are produced without demand. Just-in-time is the name commonly used to describe the Toyota Production System.

The creator of the just-in-time production management system, Taiichi Ohno, believed that traditional mass production is inherently inefficient and produces wastes at every stage of the production process. He identified seven wastes of mass production systems:

Waste arising from overproducing

Waste (time) arising from waiting

Waste arising from transport

Waste originating from processing itself

Waste originating from pointless stock-on-hand

Waste originating from pointless motion

Waste originating from making defective goods

Mass production often generates overproduction, produces bottlenecks in the flow of production, moves work back and forth across the manufacturing plant, retains inefficient processes, maintains large levels of stock-on-hand, permits nonvalue adding movement across production lines, and produces defective goods because of production pressures. An important goal of just-in-time production management is the elimination of these wastes.

Traditional mass production management is based on a push system, whereby marketing forecasts tell the factory what to produce and in what quantity. Raw materials and parts are purchased based on these forecasts, stored and forced into the front end of the production process, and subsequently pushed through each succeeding step of the process. Push-mass production systems produce significant inventories of work-in-progress goods, as well as finished goods. Contrary to traditional mass production, just-in-time production management is a pull system. The just-intime production schedule does not exclusively originate in market forecasts, but from the customer: the demand is made on factory assembly by pulling finished products out of the factory.

Product Development

Hybrid vehicles are available today and continue to gain market acceptance. Toyota's Prius has been the overwhelming favorite of the car-buying public interested in gas-electric hybrids. The first 100,000 Prius gas-electric hybrids were sold by September 2004, after the introduction of the car in Japan in 1997. While it took almost seven years to reach the first 100,000 sales, a five-fold increase was achieved in about 18 months. By April 2006, Toyota's worldwide sales passed 500,000 units. Momentum continued to build, and after another year had passed, Toyota exceeded the one million mark in sales. The Prius is a market hit, and the gas-electric hybrid technology for fuel efficiency and reduced greenhouse gas emissions has gained consumer accep-tance. Electric vehicles that were popular at the turn of the 20th century are making a comeback in the 21st century. Two entrants come from Tesla Motors, the Roadster, a high-end sport car for the elite buyer, and Think, with their City car, a working everyday runabout. Think is working to fulfill a vision of producing a carbon-neutral vehicle. The Think City has a range of 112 mi. (180 Ion.) on a single charge, regulated at a maximum speed of 62 ...