A Brief Study on Toyota's Operation and Total Quality Management
Operation and Total Quality Management
Question 1
The company I chose is Toyota Motor Corporation (Lexus).
(i) Goods and service design (product)
This operation management decision is about deciding what type of goods or service to provide to customers and also how to design these products and services to appeal to the targeted customers. Toyota Lexus has to come to a conclusion on the type of cars they should manufacture. For example, should the car be high end or affordable? They need to decide a focus point which is whether the brand Lexus should appeal to the normal working class or swinging bachelors or rich entrepreneurs. This important factor needs to be carefully pondered over as it will affect the rest of the production and the target marketing later on.
The second important decision made was how Toyota designed the Lexus car. They considered the distinguishing feature of the brand and the manner in which they should apply to the design of the car. Since the price range of Lexus is generally higher; hence, the furnishing and engineering of Toyota should be more luxurious and of higher quality. For example, the Lexus IS is targeted toward richer consumers as it is designed as a compact executive car made to compete with the luxury sport sedans of other leading European brands.
Quality
Toyota as an automobile manufacturer definitely has to have quality control, and it has to be objective, measured against an accepted standard. Toyota’s way of measuring quality is continuous improvement or in Japanese term, Kaizen. Toyota quality management is also tightly related to their Just-in-time system.
As the focus is on Toyota Lexus, there is quality differentiation between Lexus and other brands. Lexus is a higher end range of Toyota cars and it is more expensive than other range of Toyota cars. The slogan of Lexus is ‘The Pursuit of Perfection’ and they have proven themselves to be true.
For example the series Lexus IS cars has 15 quality gates and each
Question 1
The company I chose is Toyota Motor Corporation (Lexus).
(i) Goods and service design (product)
This operation management decision is about deciding what type of goods or service to provide to customers and also how to design these products and services to appeal to the targeted customers. Toyota Lexus has to come to a conclusion on the type of cars they should manufacture. For example, should the car be high end or affordable? They need to decide a focus point which is whether the brand Lexus should appeal to the normal working class or swinging bachelors or rich entrepreneurs. This important factor needs to be carefully pondered over as it will affect the rest of the production and the target marketing later on.
The second important decision made was how Toyota designed the Lexus car. They considered the distinguishing feature of the brand and the manner in which they should apply to the design of the car. Since the price range of Lexus is generally higher; hence, the furnishing and engineering of Toyota should be more luxurious and of higher quality. For example, the Lexus IS is targeted toward richer consumers as it is designed as a compact executive car made to compete with the luxury sport sedans of other leading European brands.
Quality
Toyota as an automobile manufacturer definitely has to have quality control, and it has to be objective, measured against an accepted standard. Toyota’s way of measuring quality is continuous improvement or in Japanese term, Kaizen. Toyota quality management is also tightly related to their Just-in-time system.
As the focus is on Toyota Lexus, there is quality differentiation between Lexus and other brands. Lexus is a higher end range of Toyota cars and it is more expensive than other range of Toyota cars. The slogan of Lexus is ‘The Pursuit of Perfection’ and they have proven themselves to be true.
For example the series Lexus IS cars has 15 quality gates and each