What Drives Toyota - Essay Example

What Drives Toyota? What Drives Toyota? Introduction Management can be defined as a process that involves strategic planning, setting objectives and applying the necessary resources to achieve the set objectives. The OM301 concept, on the other hand, entails examining an organization’s operations including design, management and improvement processes, projects and supply chains in both product and service environments. Toyota Company can be described as one of the most successful car manufacturing companies in the world.

This paper seeks to discuss what drives Toyota into being so successful relating its discussion on the OM301 conceptManagement qualityThe OM301 concept entails that an organization assesses its management to ensure that it best serves to achieve the goals of the organization. One aspect that makes Toyota so successful is their quality management. Toyota has developed a tradition of not just manufacturing cars, but manufacturing better cars. This is one of the aspects that drive Toyota Company.

The production process at Toyota can be described as threefold. The first fold is making cars, then making cars better and then teaching everyone how to make cars better. With a ratio of eight robots per car in the painting stage, the quality of the color outlook of the car is guaranteed to be standard (Iyer et al, 2009). The cars further spend a relatively standard time in the color painting stage to keep the quality in check.Project managementToyota Company has always strived to manage their production processes in a way that not only guarantees quality but also saves time.

In the color painting stage, for example, Toyota Company managed to reduce the amount of time taken to paint a car from ten hours to eight hours. In 2004, the company used to take time to interchange the hose pipes supplying paint to the robots. The company can be seen to have employed the idea from the OM301 concept of improving processes in an organization. After one car had been painted and another one needed to be painted with a different color, the hose pipes had to be removed from that gallon, thoroughly washed and then fixed to the desired gallon.

The process could waste up to 30% of the total paint that was bought by the company. Toyota Company came up with a system where the task of interchanging the hose pipes was left to the robots (Iyer et al, 2009). There was no cleaning that was required as the cylinders containing the paint now had each their own hose pipe. The process now took only a few seconds. The company was able to save 30% of the paint that previously went to waste. Management efficiency had been clearly displayed.The rate of productivity at the Toyota company industry in Georgetown stands at 2000 cars per day.

The human resources vice-president at the company says that in order to achieve this they need to minimize on the rate at which they are forced to change processes. He says that they cannot change processes every three minutes if they are to meet their target every day. Every system should be ready before the production process starts. The need to change a process in order to improve the standard commences only after understanding the standard. Conclusion Toyota Company has set the pace for other companies in management control.

Its application of the OM301 concept can be seen to have helped it develop a culture in the company that drives it. The OM301 concept, if applied appropriately, can go a long way in helping a company achieve its goals. ReferencesIyer, A. V., Seshadri, S., & Vasher, R. (2009). Toyota supply chain management: A strategic approach to the principles of Toyotas renowned system. New York: McGraw-Hill