TOYOTA AND JIT PROCESSING 2
Toyota and JIT Processing
Following the Guidelines of the American Psychological Association Style Guide
Name
Professor
Introduction
This essay will benchmark a public company that has JIT Processing. This essay will apply the selected company’s JIT best practices to a public company that I have researched.
The company will be Toyota. I will explain the JIT philosophy, describe the production process steps observed or implemented from the benchmarked company. I will add a flowchart as it relates to Toyota. I will compare and contrast standardized and non-standardized process steps. I will state my opinion concerning the process (effectiveness, efficiency and measurements). I will recommend process improvements using supportive evidence.
Explaining JIT Processing
Just in Time processing is similar to Print-on-Demand in Self-Publishing. The way it works is that companies only stock their goods based on the demand which is needed for the company’s requirements (Investopedia, 2017).
Toyota and JIT
According to Monden (2011), the process of using JIT saves the company waste by creating cars that may not be wanted by the public. Toyota only creates cars when there is a demand for these cars, similar to the way that Self-Publishing Print-on-Demand works for Writers (Sugimori, Kusunoki & Uchikawa, 1977).
Flowchart for Toyota
Here is a flow chart that shows the JIT processing for Toyota:
Standard and Non-Standardized Processing Steps
Standard processing steps will often have a huge supply of vehicles ready for sale when they do not use the JIT processing system (Sugimori, Kusunoki & Uchikawa, 1977). The problem with this method is unlike the non-standardized processing steps that are involved with JIT processing; a car company which is the benchmarked example for Toyota for this essay could end up having a huge stock of vehicles that do not get sold to the public. In comparison, JIT processing reduces waste and minimizes surplus unsold stock of goods for a company such as Toyota (Investopedia, 2017).
My Opinion on JIT Processing
I will state my opinion concerning the process (effectiveness, efficiency and measurements). The effectiveness of JIT processing is evidenced in the success of Toyota. Toyota is one of the top-selling vehicle companies in the world (Monden, 2011). The efficiency of the JIT processing system is apparent in the lack of waste that the benchmarked company Toyota for this essay produces within its company’s goods and services. The measurements of the JIT processing system are again evidenced by the fact that Toyota is a very successful company in the vehicle market (Monden, 2011).
Process Improvements
I will recommend process improvements using supportive evidence. Using a shoe manufacturing as an example, the following recommendations will be made for Toyota towards their customer complaints and recalls that tend to occur:
A shoe manufacturing company is having a problem with returns and customer complaints in their boot division. Top executives are meeting to figure out what these problems in the boot division are costing the company. For this assignment for my task I will create an affinity diagram with at least seven types of cost centers to show where the boot division is costing the company money. My diagram will include a) the problem statement, b) at least seven types of cost centers that are being affected by the boot division (Performance Evaluation, 1995).
Affinity Diagram
A shoe manufacturing company is having a problem with returns and customer complaints in their boot division. Top executives are meeting to figure out what these problems in the boot division are costing the company. For this assignment for my task I created an affinity diagram with at least seven types of cost centers to show where the boot division is costing the company money. My diagram included a) the problem statement situated in two separate silos and b) at least six types of cost centers that are being affected by the boot division (Performance Evaluation, 1995).
The following recommendations will be made for Toyota based on how they can improve the driving experience for their customers:
The purpose of this essay is to discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal that marked my transition from childhood to adulthood within my culture, community or family. The accomplishment and event that I am choosing to focus on is when I learned how to drive at the age of 17 years old. This marked my participation in the privilege of drivers in my community.
As a child growing up, I remember my parents driving me everywhere. They drove me to school, they drove me to athletic events, they drove me to my friends place for playdates, they drove me to the shopping malls, they drove me to the grocery store and I always tended to sit in the back seat of the car with a limited view of the driver’s world. I would wonder and wish that someday that I could be behind the driver’s wheel and go wherever I wanted to, that was of course safe to go.
Before I turned 17 years old I studied for the exam that would make it possible for me to understand the rules of the road and also came to understand that driving is not a right – it is a privilege. Once I understood this and passed the test to be able to get my driver’s license, I booked my time to take my driver’s test.
Before the test, I practiced driving. I went with a reputable driving school and two or three times a week after school, I would drive throughout my neighbourhood and learn how to handle the car, how to keep control of the vehicle and also how to park in a large empty shopping mall parking lot and how to parallel park on residential streets.
After months of working with my driving instructor and when he said that I could pass the driver’s test, I prepared with more driving with my parents just prior to the driver’s test day.
I am a very shy girl and I was absolutely frightened to have this stern test examiner barking at me concerning which way to drive and what to do with the car. I guess because I am shy I listened well to everything that the test examiner said and at the end of the test that took about one hour – I passed the driver’s test!
I received a temporary permit that said that I could drive and that I was a driver! I felt as grown up as my parents who would always drive me around when I was a child. Now I was close to being a legal adult and could control a vehicle myself always keeping in mind that in order to honor my community – driving is a privilege – not a right.
I will always remember the day that I learned how to drive and I am a careful driver that still follows the rules that I learned from my driving instructor and my parents.
The purpose of this essay was to discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal that marked my transition from childhood to adulthood within my culture, community or family. The accomplishment and event that I chose to focus on is when I learned how to drive at the age of 17 years old. This marked my participation in the privilege of drivers in my community.
Conclusion
This essay has examined JIT processing and how it relates to the benchmarked company Toyota for this essay.
References
Investopedia. (2017). “Just in Time – JIT,” Investopedia.com. Online: United States.
Retrieved from: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/j/jit.asp
Monden, Y. (2011). Toyota production system: an integrated approach to just-in-time. CRC
Press.
Performance Evaluation. (1995). Performance Evaluation, Froeb. Retrieved from:
http://www2.owen.vanderbilt.edu/lukefroeb/2003/mgt722/topics/evaluate/evaluate.html
Sugimori, Y., Kusunoki, K., Cho, F., & Uchikawa, S. (1977). Toyota production system and
kanban system materialization of just-in-time and respect-for-human system. The International Journal of Production Research, 15(6), 553-564.