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Assignment 4 Operation Management: Toyota Motors

The document is about a case study involving Doug Friesen, the manager of assembly at Toyota Motor Manufacturing (TMM). TMM was facing problems with defective seats that were causing drops in production levels and increases in overtime work and inventory. Doug needs to address the seat problems and focus on their root causes. Key issues included quality control failures by the seat supplier and deviations from Toyota Production System principles like just-in-time and stopping production when defects are found.

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Hamza Mughal
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2K views4 pages

Assignment 4 Operation Management: Toyota Motors

The document is about a case study involving Doug Friesen, the manager of assembly at Toyota Motor Manufacturing (TMM). TMM was facing problems with defective seats that were causing drops in production levels and increases in overtime work and inventory. Doug needs to address the seat problems and focus on their root causes. Key issues included quality control failures by the seat supplier and deviations from Toyota Production System principles like just-in-time and stopping production when defects are found.

Uploaded by

Hamza Mughal
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Assignment 4
Operation Management
Toyota Motors

Submitted To:
Sir Kamran
Submitted By:

Junaid Awan 08110071

MBA Fall-2008

GIFT University Gujranwala

GIFT UNIVERSITY
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Summary

Toyota Lets start with a Japanese introduction JIT: Short, for just in time, JIT is manufacturing
process aimed at getting the right quantity of quality parts to the assembly line at the exact time
they are needed for production. KAIZEN: The Japanese word for improvement, kaizen
techniques target and eliminate waste in production processes. KANBAN: The Japanese term for
sign, kanban uses standard lot sizes and often, returnable containers with a card attached.

These kanban cards, which are pulled as assembly-line workers use parts, alert suppliers that part
levels need to be replenished. Delivery car affordable price and to satisfies customer with
variety, quality and timeliness at reasonable price. Then TPS followed the Just in Time concept
and operation of Toyota motor in power train plant supplied engineering and axles to assembly
plant which performed different activities.

And also assembly involves different line like Green line, Red line, Yellow Line etc. Quality
control systems are also performing how to control the quality.

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Q1: As Doug Friesen, what would you do to address the seat problem? Where would you
focus your attention and solution efforts?

Seat Problems
In early 1992, TMM became the sole source of new Camry wagons with more than 41 seat
variations exported over the world. Doug Friesen, manager of assembly for TMM, confronted
seat problems resulting in drop of run ratio (production level) and in increase of overtime works,
lead- time and off-line vehicle inventory.
Assumptions
First, reduction of seat variance is not considered as an alternative because Doug is a manager of
assembly without control over sales decisions.

Second, although inefficient feedback system is observed, improvement of information


sharing is not considered as an alternative because Doug requires specific solutions for seat
problems after all feedbacks are shared and discussed.

Analysis of Seat Problems


Two major problems are observed: process and feedback management problems in TMM and
quality control management issues in KFS.
Failure of seat quality management in KFS caused most seat problems such as problematic
(wrong, missing, broken) parts, wrinkles, no-op of rear seat lock, and missing bolster. In
addition, because KSF inspect 100 % of seats before shipping them, these kinds of problematic
parts should not be shipped or allocated to the assembly line if the inspection process was
appropriately executed.

Q2: What options exist? What would you recommend? Why?

The seats are damaged during the assembly. Hence, one of the options that the manager has is
to revise seat assembly team. Another issue is to redesign or improve off-line operations in case
the manager decides to continue correcting seats off-line. Also, the manager should think
through the overwork that the plant has after TMM became the sole source of the Camry
wagons fro the first time for Toyota worldwide.

Revision of the seats design in order to control assembly defects To have multi-suppliers to
lighten the burden of the only supplier who works for 18 different styles Revision of the off-
line operations in order to avoid overtime work These are the possible recommendations that

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may be useful for the manager of the plant. Since the high level of off line vehicle inventory
affects negatively the sales and most importantly the just-in-time principle of TMM.

Q3: Where, if at all, does the current routine for handling defective seats deviate from the
principles of the Toyota Production System?

The current routine for handling defective seats deviates from the two guiding principles of
TMM. First, high level of the defective cars inventory does not apply to the just-in-time
principle.

It is considered a deviation of the true production, which is hence a waste given the Toyota
Production Systems principles. Second, the current application is against Jidoka principle,
which insists on building quality in the production process and on stopping production
whenever a problem is detected. Also, two strong attitudes created within the organization -
stick to the facts and get down to the root cause of the problem are ignored. A typical
discussion of a problem would start with lets go see it and then converge on the five whys
exercise until the root cause was identified and determined. Contrarily to these principles, the
plant currently tries to handle defective seats with off-line operations.

Q4: What is the real problem facing Doug Friesen?

Toyota Motor Manufacturing, U.S.A. (TMM) is deviating from the standard assembly line
principle of jidoka in an attempt to avoid expenses incurred from stopping the production line for
seat quality defects. This deviation has contributed to the inability to identify the root cause of
the problem, which has led to decreased run ratios on the line and an excess of defective
automobiles in the overflow lot for multiple days.   If this problem isn’t fixed quickly, an
increased amount of waste will continue to be incurred and customer value will be threatened.

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