Toyota Production System Case

Toyota is well positioned to embark on their mission of expansion in North America. The company has pioneered Toyota Production System (TPS) which has become a standard in the manufacturing industries as well as other industries. The TPS is concept that incorporates specific guiding principles into the production of goods with the objective of minimizing waste and producing high quality products. TPS culture promotes total involvement towards their goals of complete waste elimination, quality production and customer satisfaction. This is achieved through ‘kaizen’ which is a continuum of related activities that seeks to involve all employees to improve all functions and processes across all departments.

This report shows the results of grid analysis, decisions trees and regional production strategy in Toyota’s selection of prospective manufacturing location in North America. The report highlights key exogenous and endogenous factors identified and analyzed to gauge their favorability in the decision making process. Team Xtreme has analyzed various options and provides a recommendation on the optimal production capacity justified by the utilization of a decision tree that shows how the company can maximize its profits at the selected location at a certain production level.

Toyota strives to capitalize on the success of their regional strategy and will continue to draw on their principles under “Toyota’s Way”. There are 14 principles that constitute Toyota Way and these are organized into four main categories of:

 Establishing and maintaining long term philosophy

 Identifying and Implementing to drive the right results

 Adding value to the company by developing its people

 Continuous process improvement and solving problems to drive organizational results.

These categories also incorporate the tools and techniques that are culturally and fundamentally intrinsic to the processes and philosophies of Toyota and have been proven to epitomize the success of the organization.

Background and Function of TPS

Toyota Production System Terms Defined and Applied

Jidoka

Jidoka is the intelligent design in automation which allows recognition of a problem or malfunction of a machine when abnormal conditions have occurred and immediately stops the work. These machines are equipped with a signaling device which highlights the root cause of the problem to prevent further occurrences in the process and also prevent further damage, defects in products and delays in production. Jidoka also enables organizations to have