With growing competition among companies in the different industries, an efficient operation is essential for firms to offer quality goods and services at competitive prices. This can be made possible through the adoption of appropriate production technology, having a customer-oriented philosophy, and good management of the company's resources. Also, the ability of the company to develop and maintain competitive advantages depends on what it does well. The effective and efficient management of a company's supply chain is a possible source of competitive advantage as long as the company can manage its better than its competitors.
Change is pervasive not only in people's individual lives but also in business organizations – for profit or not. Change is inevitable; it is also one of the constants in this world. It doesn't matter if an organization is doing something about the impact of change – technological, societal and market – on how they do business. These changes will still impact on them and those who react fastest and most constructively will survive. Management theories emerged as a result of change. From the scientific management to centralized organization; from a decentralized management to empowered workforce; and from a knowledge management to learning organization. In order to protect its current status, Toyota Motors Corporation, as they say, must run faster to stay in place. First and foremost, it must embrace change whole heartedly – this means the entire organization as a whole rather than its parts individually.
The above changes unfortunately results to a more cutthroat competition not only in the automobile industry but in all industries affected by these changes. Sustaining status quo or surviving in a highly competitive environment is expensive. Companies, to maintain their standing in the market, have to spend more and more in advertising and other activities to sustain the market's interest in their products and services. This practice is fatal in the long run. Certainly a company can not indefinitely spend its scarce financial resources in activities which can only sustain what is. To survive the company must not only please existing customers, but make new ones too.
[...] Manufacturing Resources Planning or MRP II Manufacturing Resources Planning or MRP II was developed in the early 1980s as an expansion of MRP with the inclusion of two additional elements: Financial and Simulation. Finance translates the operating plan into financial terms while simulations addresses “what questions. Techniques for planning capacity requirements such as sales forecast and production or operation planning are integrated with material requirements planning in MRP II. From the benefits it gained from MRP Toyota enhanced its materials resources planning system to encompass financial and add simulation capability. [...]
[...] The presence of these cards in specific station indicates that existing inventories in one work station should be moved to the next station. The kanban helps in the determination of the production quantities needed by each of the production processes. These quantities are necessary to facilitate just-in-time. The kanban, specifying the exact inputs needed by a process, ultimately eliminates overproduction and reduces defects. Coordination with the suppliers is also critical if a minimum amount or near zero raw materials inventory is desired. [...]
[...] ERP integrates the different business functions and units of an organization which results to business process improvements and standardization, real-time access to company and other relevant data and information, integration of business units, increased company flexibility both as an organization and in its individual components, increased employee productivity which is a result of the streamlined business processes, increased customer satisfaction, optimized supply chain and logistics processes, better competitive positioning ability, improved time to market cycles, and improved product and services quality. [...]
[...] Standards in the manufacture and production of goods, and execution of services must be met for the customer to be able to optimize value for money. Toyota Motors Corporation all throughout its history from Kaizen to Toyota Production System to further Kaizen has strived not only to maintain its current market position, but to improve it as well. A testimony to the success of these efforts is Toyota's inclusion as one of the top ten Fortune Global 500 companies by Fortune Magazine in 2003. [...]
[...] An integral part of the Toyota Production System is its just- in-time system for its inventories supported by kanban which the company popularized, then furthered improved on by materials resources I and II Just-in-Time or JIT The Just-In-Time or JIT approach was developed by the Toyota Motor Company of Japan in the sixties. It is a manufacturing philosophy that emphasizes the following: short setup and lead time, small batch sizes, frequent production runs, high quality, and constant improvement in product and process design. [...]
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