Quality Assurance

Assignment 1

V.Arjunaa UWU/SCT /08/0048 Mechatronics.

1) Briefly discuss the 8 dimension of quality? y Performance - The accomplishment of a given task measured against pre-set known standards of accuracy, completeness, cost, and speed. In a contract, performance is deemed to be the fulfilment of an obligation, in a manner that releases the performer from all liabilities under the contract. Durability - Ability to undergo permanent deformation without cracking or fracturing. Serviceability - Degree to which the servicing of an item can be accomplished with given resources and within a specified timeframe. Reliability - The ability of an apparatus, machine, or system to consistently perform its intended or required function or mission, on demand and without degradation or failure. Aesthetics - Relating to beauty. "The aesthetic wonder I saw in the vibrant countryside took my breath away." Features - Means of providing benefits to customers. A feature is a distinctive characteristic of a good or service that sets it apart from similar items. Customers, however, want a benefit and do not care much about the features which are touted by every supplier as unique or superior. Perceived quality - Consumer's opinion of a product's (or a brand's) ability to fulfil his or her expectations. It may have little or nothing to do with the actual excellence of the product, and is based on the firm's (or brand's) current public image(see corporate), consumer's experience with the firm's other products, and the influence of the opinion leaders, consumer's peer group, and others. y Conformance - Certification or confirmation that a good, service, or conduct meets the requirements of legislation, accepted practices, prescribed rules and regulations, specified standards, or terms of a contract. See also compliance.

2) Select a specific product or service & discuss how the 8 dimension of quality impact its overall acceptance by consumers?

Toyota Cars (Japan)

Toyota Motor Corporation commonly known simply as Toyota and abbreviated as TMC is a multinational automaker headquartered in Toyota, Aichi, Japan. In 2010, Toyota Motor Corporation employed 317,734 people worldwide, and was the world's largest automobile manufacturer by production. The company was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937 as a spinoff from his father's company Toyota Industries to create automobiles. Three years earlier, in 1934, while still a department of Toyota Industries, it created its first product, the Type A engine, and, in 1936, its first passenger car, the Toyota. Toyota Motor Corporation group companies are Toyota (including the Scion brand), Lexus, Daihatsu and Hino Motors, along with several "nonautomotive" companies. TMC is part of the Toyota Group, one of the largest conglomerates in the world. Performance of the Toyota Company is normally very high. Market capital of the Toyota Company is 107,412 million according to last year. Shares outstanding are 1567 million. Its current liabilities are 359,775.2 million. y Share price performance of last 3 years

Share price performance intraday

Growth rate of Toyota

5-Year Growth -1.45 0.00 0.00 -6.14 0.00 0.00 R of 5-Year Growth 3.9 0.0 0.0 NA NA NA 3-Year Growth -6.41 0.00 -31.69 -12.42 0.00 0.00

GROWTH RATES Revenue Income Dividend Capital Spending R&D Normalized Inc.

Toyota has high expectations: more than 200,000 truck sales this year (nearly twice that of the previous smaller model), 300,000 eventually. It's a direct challenge to MO town. Full-sized pickups are the highest-volume vehicles sold by the Detroit Three and make a tidy profit. Buyers are loyal, and imports have had a tough time breaking in. A less determined company might never have returned after this humiliation. But Toyota (Charts) came back a few years later with a better car and has gone from strength to strength ever since. Toyotas presence in the U.S. is now so routine that the 3,322 business leaders Fortune surveyed named Toyota one of America's Most Admired Companies for the second year in a row - boosting it to third place overall, behind two American perennials, General Electric and Starbucks. Toyota has returned the compliment, making an entrance into that most American of sports - we're talking NASCAR - and introducing a full-sized, Texasbuilt pickup truck, the Tundra. But the most important reason that Toyota became America's most prestigious automaker is that this quintessentially Japanese company has been better than Detroit at reading the American car psyche. Toyota has never been a style leader. It has never created a car as iconic as, say, the Ford Mustang. But it discerned correctly that many car buyers don't need the next hot thing. They just want a trouble-free product that looks fine - and they will pay a premium for it. One way Toyota reads the public mind is the think tank at Toyota Motor Sales in Torrance, Calif., where a research department staffed by 116 people monitors the industry and keeps tabs on demographic and economic developments. Its mission: to predict consumer trends and create a line-up of cars and trucks to capitalize on them. Each professional is expected to

spend time out in the field talking to car buyers. The Japanese have a name for it: genchi genbutsu - go to the scene and confirm the actual happenings. Most big companies have something like it; what distinguishes Toyota is that its executives actually listen and have turned those insights into profits. When researchers found in the mid1990s that Toyota was losing young buyers to hipper brands like VW, its marketers dreamed up the hugely successful Scion. Another case: GM was fooling around with electric cars as far back as the 1980s, but it was Toyota that tapped into the appeal of the green revolution with the hybrid-powered Prius. The Prius accounts for less than 5% of U.S. sales, but Toyota has won a fortune in good publicity. The in-the-flesh manifestation of this obsession with research and planning is Jim Lentz, 51, who succeeded Jim Press (see "Toyota's Secret Weapon") last year as the top American executive at Toyota's U.S. sales arm. Preppy and personable, Lentz peppers his conversation with trend-conscious facts (did you know that Wal-Mart intends to sell 400 kinds of organic food?) and watches the rest of the world nearly as closely as he does the U.S. (he marvels at the explosion of premium-priced small cars in Europe, like the BMW 1-series). Toyota is tilting toward American tastes today - that's what the Tundra and the dip into NASCAR racing are about - but he expects to be taking a broader perspective over the next ten years. "The landscape of the market is going to change dramatically," he said during an interview at Toyota's campus south of Los Angeles. "Urbanization, interest in healthy lifestyles, safety, and security--we need to open our eyes to more global products and platforms." That's positive for a small car like Toyota's Yaris, which can be sold around the world, but less so for the U.S.-only Tundra, a V-8 that gets about 16 miles per gallon. The new Tundra is an inflection point for Toyota in the U.S. On the one hand, Lentz has to figure out how to make it succeed in the auto market of the future; on the other, it's a big investment that needs to succeed right away. Inside the company it's common to hear the Tundra described as the riskiest launch in its history, because it is highly visible - and frankly, a test of the company's machismo. Toyota has high expectations: more than 200,000 truck sales this year (nearly twice that of the previous smaller model), 300,000 eventually. It's a direct challenge to Motown. Full-sized pickups are the highest-volume vehicles sold by the Detroit Three and make a tidy profit. Buyers are loyal, and imports have had a tough time breaking in. Toyota approached the new Tundra cautiously - and characteristically. Planning started seven years ago, when engineers gathered in 2000 to drive different trucks and experiment with hauling trailers - a weakness in the old version. They even stopped at national parks to talk to recreational users. Such nitty-gritty consumer study, bolstered by other research, told Toyota it should stay away from cowboy imagery and country music; the competition had covered that territory. "Buyers said, 'dont waste our time. Tell me why I should buy the truck,'" Lentz says. The upshot: Emphasize brute strength and performance. During the Super Bowl, Toyota did just that. One ad for the Tundra showed it hauling a 10,000-pound load; another depicted it braking inches before it hurtled off a precipice (the truck was restrained by a tether). To show that it was serious, Toyota decided to build a brand-new plant dedicated to this model in San Antonio. Far from normal transportation

routes, the location is difficult logistically, but it did plop Toyota in the heart of truck country - and in a big, powerful state. Toyota is developing a safety technology that takes control of the steering so the vehicle can veer away when it isn't able to stop before impact. All the world's automakers are working on special safety technology in an effort to woo customers, as competition intensifies among manufacturers already neck-and-neck in delivering the regular features for their products. Cars that stop or slow down automatically before an object or person in anticipation of a possible crash are not new. But Toyota's latest pre-collision system adds a steering-control feature. In the new system, Toyota uses cameras and a super sensitive radar called "millimetre-wave," both installed in the front of the vehicle, to detect possible crashes such as a pedestrian crossing the road. The vehicle calculates how braking and steering must be applied to avoid a crash, said chief safety technology officer Moritaka Yoshida."We must learn from accidents and keep making improvements in safety features," he said. Toyota declined to say when the feature may be offered on a commercial. Model, or in which markets, but officials hinted that it was ready to be offered soon. Toyota said it was aiming for zero fatalities and injuries, although it did not say when that goal would be achieved.Fatalities have been declining in auto accidents because of better safety features, but deaths among pedestrians in traffic accidents have not gone down in Japan, according to government statistics. Protecting pedestrians is increasingly key, according to Toyota, which makes the Prius hybrid and Lexus luxury models. Toyota showed what is called a pop-up hood, which rises slightly in a crash, to mitigate the impact of a pedestrian getting hit by a car, similar to features offered by European makers. It also showed how parts of the rays from high-beam headlights could be blocked so that drivers could still see clearly what was ahead while headlights would appear to be on low beam to the driver in a car coming from the other direction. Toyota also showed a steering wheel in development that measures the heartbeat of the driver to prevent crashes that can happen when drivers suffer heart attacks. This how about Toyota still first in the motor car market.