Реферат: Toyota Essay Research Paper Lets start with

These are the possible recommendations that 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.

In addition, it is important to note that maintaining the quality in the long run is closely dependent on the efficiency of each step of the production process.

3.) 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 System?s 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 ?let?s 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. In case of the cars with seat problems, the car went through the assembly line with the defective seat in it. Then the car was driven to the Code 1 clinic area to see if the problem was correctable there. If the problem called for a replacement seat, the car was moved to the overflow parking area where the car waited for new seat to be delivered from the supplier.

This creates the need for overtime in order to fix waiting cars.

It is obvious that the handling is not suitable to the design of the production in the plant.

4.) What is the real problem facing Doug Friesen?

The real problem of the plant is the identification of the problem, which disturbs all the production operations. It is mostly concentrated on the off-line operations, which are not suitable to the overall design of the plant.

He should first decide whether the problem comes from the seats and the supplier or from the way the problem is solved through off-line operations.

The team leaders of the plant report separately different problems such as supplier?s delay in delivering the replacement seats, occasional incidents of cross threading or the hook breakage while seat assembly.

In fact, all these incidents may be linked to the need of redesigning some parts of the production since the plant is overloaded and workers suffer of overtime.

Bibliography

References

? Harvard Business School Case Study # 6-692-049: ?Toyota?; Harvard Business School Publishing, 1986