Analytics exercise: Quality Management †Toyota Essay

Discussion Questions: Develop diagram that summarizes what Toyota has done in response to it recent quality recall problems. Focus on the changes by functional area (i.e. Management, Product Design, Quality, and Manufacturing). Functional Area Actions Management Name a managing director to oversee all safety-related issues. Quality Launch a global database to track vehicle repairs and cut reporting times about customer complaints from months to days. The foundation of Toyota Advanced Quality Information Center. Extend deployment of rapidresponse teams to determine the causes of accidents beyond the US and Japan to other major markets, including China and Europe. Swift Market Analysis Response Team that they rolled out globally Manufacturing Assign 1000 engineers to spot-check quality and add at least four weeks to its new-car development scedules. Evaluate the statement in the case made by Toru Sakuragi. Is this a realistic strategy? Do you have suggestions for how the strategy might be improved? The strategy to balance between pursuing the need to cut costs to overcome the strong yen and the need to improve quality to prevent recalls is a realistic but difficult strategy if you look at the long-term. Cutting costs and improving quality are both decisive factors for Toyotas survival. Toyota first built its reputation on quality, but seen the damage it suffered years ago, this strategy is determining if Toyota can make a remarkable recovery or not. Firstly, it needs to insure that quality is settled across all makes and models. They can continue to look for cost savings, but do so without sacrificing that baseline set of customer expectations. Secondly it should look for features that are no longer relevant, that customers no longer care about, and use this as a basis for cost cutting features. And finally it should look for points of innovation across its portfolio and it continue its role as a auto technology innovator, to stay competitive. Suggest improvements that you feel could be made to Toyota’s quality program. Also, what might Toyota do to improve its image to the consumer relative to quality.