The Largest Automobile Manufacturer in Japan - Term Paper Example

Contents Overview of the Organization 2 Supply Chain network 3 Process map of the operation 6 Packaging and 4 V’s Concept 8 Potential MUDA and Proposed Changes 10 Conclusion 12 References 14 Overview of the Organization Honda Motor Co., Ltd is a Japanese company and is primarily into production of motorcycles and automobiles. It is the world’s largest manufacturer of motorcycle from 1959 and also it is world’s biggest manufacturer of internal combustion engines producing an approximate of 14 million engines every year. It became the second largest automobile manufacturer in Japan in 2001 and became 8th largest in the whole world in 2011. Honda was founded by Soichiro Honda. It’s headquarter is in Minato, Tokyo in Japan. Honda has its assemble plants in various places around the world like in Pakistan, US, New Zealand, Brazil, Belgium, Mexico, England, China, Indonesia, India, Thailand, Peru, Argentina, Taiwan, Canada, Malaysia and Turkey. Honda has a wide range of products category, the various types of products categories manufactured by Honda are been listed below. Automobiles Motor Cycles Power Equipment’s Engines Robots Aircrafts Solar cells Mountain Bikes ATV The further classification of these products is been seen in the study further. This study covers the overall operations of Honda including the supply chain management, its process flow, packaging and transportation technique, and the concept of four V’s for Honda and also the potential muda that’s the waste that is present in Honda. Supply Chain network The most important shift in today’s business world is that the style of business handed by an individual is no more in concept and companies are looking to outsource more of their departments to have their work done quickly and also with good quality at a cheaper rate. This outsourcing is done generally based on the supply chain network of the company which playa a major role in this competitive world in reducing the cost and also providing the customers with good quality product and also at the right time (Baker, 2002, pp. 76-80). This requires good relationship among the various stages and members involved in the whole supply chain process. Supply chain leads to higher revenue generation and also helps in reducing the overall costing for the company increasing the profitability index. SCM of Honda from the supplier to the company is shown below in the diagram. Thus from the supplier to the assembly plant of Honda the supply chain is been seen wherein different suppliers supply the parts based on the purchase made by the Honda purchase department and these products are brought in the trading department from where the materials go to the raw material mill which is the store, in the store parts from other direct suppliers also come in and then these parts are been send to the various assembly plants of Honda at different places in the world (Pinedo and Chao, 1998, pp.113-116). The overall SCM process for Honda basically has 12 steps and it follows economic of scale where all the purchase orders are made from the main plant which is the Honda Trading America Corporation. The overall supply chain for Honda from the suppliers to the customers is been displayed using the below diagram. In this case the materials from the suppliers come to the main plant and then to the assembly plants at different countries and from the assembly plant the cars are assembled properly and after the quality check it is been sent to various distributors from where the cars are directly bought by the customers (Vollmann, William, Clay and Jacobs, 2005 pp. 97-105). This is the forward path of flow of materials and final product to the customers in the same way the information regarding the demand of a particular product, quality and technical requirements and also informations to the suppliers from the plant regarding the quality of the product and other features flows in the backward direction. In the information flow the customer’s feedback comes from the retailers or distributors to the warehouse from where the concern information is been send across to the assembly plant from where the main plain gets the right information and as per which it gives orders to the suppliers regarding the material needed in which quality, how much volume and other factors. This information flow helps to improve every commodity which is attached to the supply chain (Bayraktar, 2007, pp. 223-226). Thus the whole of supply chain process is a circular process where the product goes from the company to the customer and the information comes from the customer to the company and then to the suppliers. Process map of the operation Honda does manufacture many products and thus has a good process flow of its manufacturing process (Manos and Vincent, 2012, pp. 320-324). The manufacturing process goes through a particular line process and the process map showing the whole manufacturing process is shown in the below diagram showing all the different stages in the production of a single car. The entire process with respect to the time taken in each process is been given in the below diagram and the man machine needed in various stages are also been seen. Moulding- It is done by an automatic moulding machine with one moulding operator Stamping- in both the stamping process a 10klbs press is used and 1 press operator is needed to operate this machine. Welding- In both the welding process 1 welding machine is used and a single operator is needed. Thus for both the process in total 2 welding machines and 2 operators are used. Engine assembly- this process needs one engine assembler Final Assembly- in the final assembly process where all the parts are brought together to make the entire car 10 operators are needed. The man and machine usage is different for different process. The number of machines required and operators needed for a particular process is been shown below. Thus there are in total of 4 paths and the longest path takes 37mins in total and thus the critical path method is the one with 37mins and the critical path is been displayed in the above diagram of process flow with dotted red lines (Liker and Meier, 2005, pp. 223-225). Each step is very important in the whole process as for making the chassis that is the body of the car foundry, pressing is very much needed and also for pressing the logo on the body press is needed (Hounshell, 1985, pp. 165-170). The colour in the body is done through the painting stage. Welding is required to make the complete outer body of the car and engine assembly is done where the engine for the particular car is been made and the seats assembly is required to fix the seats of the car and finally the final assembly is where all the various parts are brought together and combined together to from the complete car which is then usable for the customer after the quality check (Sabel, and Zeitlin, 2002, pp. 97-100). Packaging and 4 V’s Concept Honda has reduced its packaging to a huge extent to become more environmental supportive. It has also made its suppliers to use returnable packaging materials for packing the materials and this criterion is very important for Honda’s vendor selection. The company has tried and moved towards green logistics (Wireman, 2004, pp. 89-92). Packaging is very important in the transportation process to keep the goods been supplied in good quality, for example for making the seats the clothes, foam and also for other parts where plastic is been used are been packed in proper containers which keeps these items undamaged and the product reaches the place in perfect way. The delicate electronic and other electrical equipment’s even the engine is been transported by packing it in the bubble paper so that the condition and the quality of the product is maintained at the time it reaches the company and there is no damage loss. The automobiles like car’s and bikes are been transported by using minimal packaging with only delicate parts are been covered, on the other hand the other products like engines, robots, solar cells are very much delicate and to maintain their quality keeping their delicacy in mind they are been packed using bubble plastics and then into cartons which are been used to transfer the goods to other places (Bass, 2010, pp. 78-82). The four V concept is used to basically know the cost of producing services and products which is based on many factors but the major factors are been covered by the 4 V’s. The 4 V’s are been listed down. Volume Variety Variation Visibility. All these four V’s which help in decreasing the cost of production is been studied briefly with context of Honda. Thus all the four V’s are present quite high in case of Honda, which does helps the company to achieve the economies of scale very easily and thus spend less in the cost of production and gain more profits. The pictorial representation for the presence of 4 V’s for Honda is been implemented below. Implementing the concept of 4 V’s for Honda it is seen how the company reduces its cost of production and increases its revenue over the years. Implementing the concept of 4 V’s for Honda it is seen how the company reduces its cost of production and increases its revenue over the years. Potential MUDA and Proposed Changes In every production system there are basically seven very dangerous wastes which in Japanese terms are called as MUDA (Corwin, and Puckett, 2009, pp. 10-13). These 7 types of wastes does hamper a lot to the company’s process and leads to a lot of expense and wastage of resources which if effectively utilised can help the company to gain more. For every company the basic motive is to have a proper resource utilisation (Manos and Vincent, 2012, pp. 75-82). The major 7 types of wastes are been listed below. Overproduction- Overproduction of goods is one of the biggest wastes as the company produces more than the demand. This leads to over utilisation of materials, man power and also increases the storage costs as the overproduced items are kept in the stores without getting dispatched. Thus supply chain helps a lot in this as it provides the information regarding the demand of the particular product in the market based on which the production can be done. Delay or Waiting-Delay in the manufacturing process or a particular process been waiting for the earlier process to be completed as a result a lot of time is wasted in this and waste of time in the manufacturing process does affects the company in losing out on value points. Transport: The various transportation medium used to bring the materials from the customers and also for making the product to reach the customer is very important as company needs to decide upon the correct transportation from timely delivery of the products. Honda uses the marine transport for movement of goods from a country to another and road transport within the country. This also includes the stops been made in the process which is completely out of routes and it increases material handling to a large extent. Motion: Unnecessary movement of people and also the movement of the materials in the assembly line is also a waste as it increases the cycle time of and as a result the volume of production goes down. Inventory- Storing materials and having inventory is a big waste of space and also cost. Companies should follow JIT system to keep zero stock level in its inventory. Space- The usage of space is very important in volumetric way and it should be utilised fully. It includes inefficient use of warehouse space like companies look to cover the length and breadth of the warehouse and forget about the height which can be used to store items using various machines. Errors: The errors caused in the manufacturing process and producing goods which have some defects are a waste of time, materials, labour and also cost (Sutherland, and Bennett, 2007, pp. 2-4). Honda has covered all these MUDA’s and has looked to have a good productions system but still the waste of making defective products do arises from time to time and as a result of which it incurs quite a bit of loss (Honda Motor Co. Ltd., 2013, pp. 3-5). Honda must try and produce its goods based on the feedback from the customers and also the distributors to control the overproduction of particular product and also try and achieve zero defects after achieving six sigma so that the production process becomes more efficient and effective. Honda must try and implement QFD (Quality Functional Deployment) to know exact requirement of the customers so that it can satisfy customers’ needs in the best way. Conclusion Through this study report it is seen how Honda is so much efficient in its production technique and produces high quality products from long time and has become one of the largest automobile manufacturing company in the world. Various aspects of production orations like the Supply chain, Concept of 4 V’s, the MUDA’s, the production process flow, Critical Path in production process are been studied taking Honda’s process into consideration. References Baker, K. R., 2002. Elements of Sequencing and Scheduling. Hanover: Baker Press. Pinedo, M., and Chao,X . 1998. Operations Scheduling with Applications in Manufacturing and Services. Boston:McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Vollmann, T, William, B,Clay ,W, and Jacobs,R. 2005. Manufacturing Planning and Control Systems for Supply Chain Management. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin. Bayraktar, E. 2007. New challenges & opportunities for operations practioners in the new millennium. [pdf]. Available at: http://www.opf.slu.cz/vvr/akce/turecko/pdf/Bayraktar.pdf. [Accessed on March 5 2014]. Manos,A and Vincent,C. 2012. The Lean Certification Handbook: A Guide to the Bronze Certification Body of Knowledge. Milwaukee. ASQ Quality Press. Liker and Meier,M. 2005. The Toyota Way Fieldbook . New Delhi. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Hounshell,D. 1985. From the American System to Mass Production, 1800-1932: The Development of Manufacturing Technology in the United States. Maryland. JHU Press Sabel,C and Zeitlin,J 2002. World of Possibilities: Flexibility and Mass Production in Western Industrialization. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. Wireman,T. 2004. Total Productive Maintenance. New York. Industrial Press Inc. Bass, 2010. Lean Six Sigma. New Delhi. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Manos,A and Vincent,C, 2012. The Lean Certification Handbook: A Guide to the Bronze Certification Body of Knowledge. Milwaukee. ASQ Quality Press. Honda Motor Co. Ltd..2013. Annual Reort. [pdf]. Available at: < http://world.honda.com/investors/library/annual_report/2013/honda2013ar-all-e.pdf>. [Accessed on March 5 2014]. Corwin,J and Puckett,R. 2009. Japan’s Manufacturing Competitiveness Strategy: Challenges for Japan, Opportunities for the United States. [pdf]. Available at: http://www.trade.gov/mas/ian/build/groups/public/@tg_ian/documents/webcontent/tg_ian_002085.pdf. [Accessed on March 5 2014]. Sutherland,J and Bennett,B. 2007. The Seven Deadly Wastes of Logistics: Applying Toyota Production System Principles to Create Logistics Value. [pdf]. Available at: < http://www.distributiongroup.com/articles/SevenWastesofLogistics.pdf>. [Accessed on March 5 2014]. Honda. 2014. Products. [online]. Available at: < http://www.honda.com/>. [Accessed on March 5 2014]. 2 Read More