Abstract:
In late 2009, Toyota Motor Corporation came into the bad light of the U.S. media and became the subject of scrutiny before the U.S. House of Representative committee after the emergence of many cases of deaths, accidents and injuries. These cases of death and injuries were majorly attributed to accidents that resulted from the problems of sudden and uncontrolled acceleration of its cars, including the popular models in the U.S market like Corolla and Camry. Even after the Toyota’s voluntary recall of 4.2 million vehicles for the replacement of its floor mats that, according to the company, were responsible for the jamming of the accelerator pedal and a subsequent recall to improve the space between the gas pedal and the floor, the …show more content…
Solution: The following are the major contributors towards the Toyota’s accelerator crisis:
a) With the rise of Toyota into a global powerhouse in the automobile industry, the organizational structure of the organization was sacrificed the most. It emerged into a centralized design where the decision making authority of its units in other countries were put into the hands of the executives in Japan. Centralized structure of Toyota ultimately flawed its ability to avoid the safety concerns before they reached the crisis.
b) A quality method used in identifying and prioritizing the potential causes of a quality related issue in a process is cause-and-effect analysis. In a way, this can be considered as reverse engineering method which is normally used in identifying the elements of a specific quality issue and identifying the causes related to it, so that it can be corrected. The problem in the Toyota’s case wasn’t the unintended acceleration of certain vehicles; the main problem lied in the flawed internal management decision-making process that adversely impacted the engineering of those vehicles which created the original …show more content…
Some of them are-
1. High Focus on Lean Management: In an attempt to reduce the costs and make their products competitive in the market, Toyota aggressively pushed Lean Management philosophy. Due to this, the overall quality of the product suffered and focus shifted from providing “reliable and quality” products to ‘gaining global market share”. This lead to production of sub-standard products which impacted the safety of the customers. Due to the cost leadership strategy, the focus of management was more on improving the bottom line than putting out quality products which Toyota is known for. 2. Global Expansion Strategy: Toyota wanted to be in as many countries as possible in the quickest time possible. They expanded too quickly which put a strain on their resources. The available resources were thinned out which lead to reduction in their net profit. In order to counter that, Toyota decided to cut corners in the wrong places which ended up being detrimental to the company. Due to the rapid expansion, the supply chain of the company was also under stress which lead to shortage of key spare parts. Toyota then resorted to alternative suppliers to fulfill the demand which did not meet the quality standards set forth by the
In late 2009, Toyota Motor Corporation came into the bad light of the U.S. media and became the subject of scrutiny before the U.S. House of Representative committee after the emergence of many cases of deaths, accidents and injuries. These cases of death and injuries were majorly attributed to accidents that resulted from the problems of sudden and uncontrolled acceleration of its cars, including the popular models in the U.S market like Corolla and Camry. Even after the Toyota’s voluntary recall of 4.2 million vehicles for the replacement of its floor mats that, according to the company, were responsible for the jamming of the accelerator pedal and a subsequent recall to improve the space between the gas pedal and the floor, the …show more content…
Solution: The following are the major contributors towards the Toyota’s accelerator crisis:
a) With the rise of Toyota into a global powerhouse in the automobile industry, the organizational structure of the organization was sacrificed the most. It emerged into a centralized design where the decision making authority of its units in other countries were put into the hands of the executives in Japan. Centralized structure of Toyota ultimately flawed its ability to avoid the safety concerns before they reached the crisis.
b) A quality method used in identifying and prioritizing the potential causes of a quality related issue in a process is cause-and-effect analysis. In a way, this can be considered as reverse engineering method which is normally used in identifying the elements of a specific quality issue and identifying the causes related to it, so that it can be corrected. The problem in the Toyota’s case wasn’t the unintended acceleration of certain vehicles; the main problem lied in the flawed internal management decision-making process that adversely impacted the engineering of those vehicles which created the original …show more content…
Some of them are-
1. High Focus on Lean Management: In an attempt to reduce the costs and make their products competitive in the market, Toyota aggressively pushed Lean Management philosophy. Due to this, the overall quality of the product suffered and focus shifted from providing “reliable and quality” products to ‘gaining global market share”. This lead to production of sub-standard products which impacted the safety of the customers. Due to the cost leadership strategy, the focus of management was more on improving the bottom line than putting out quality products which Toyota is known for. 2. Global Expansion Strategy: Toyota wanted to be in as many countries as possible in the quickest time possible. They expanded too quickly which put a strain on their resources. The available resources were thinned out which lead to reduction in their net profit. In order to counter that, Toyota decided to cut corners in the wrong places which ended up being detrimental to the company. Due to the rapid expansion, the supply chain of the company was also under stress which lead to shortage of key spare parts. Toyota then resorted to alternative suppliers to fulfill the demand which did not meet the quality standards set forth by the