Total Quality Management Of Toyota Business

Introduction

In today’s human resource management, the trends are changing from time to time.
Some trends are new and due to the economy, while others are emerging due to new
rules, new types of degrees and education, and the type of people you employ. Other
than that, trends implemented by the Company such as working in teams, virtual teams,
open-book management, management of diversity, total quality management (TQM)
and so on also have an impact on the human resources.

Some of the challenges that a human resource managers will face with are the changes
in working styles. The different working styles between Baby boomers, Generation X,
and Generation Y are as follows:

1943 to 1960 - Baby Boomer work styles tend to be youthful, optimistic, and they are
team players as well as competitors. Baby boomers appear to have an attitude that says
"Get it done, whatever it takes," even if that means nights and weekends. Conversing
with management is formal and to the point with baby boomers. Finally, baby boomers
feel work is important meaning the success of their projects are important.

1961 to 1981 - Generation X work styles are more worried about balancing work with
lifestyles, and being realistic. Generation X look to find the fastest route to the
achievement of projects and are more anxious about deadlines, not work hours. Gen X
lacks the communication skills baby boomers strive hard to perfect and are often direct
and skeptical. Gen X is more interested in what the project means, not the work or how
it comes to a conclusion.

If that's not enough to worry about in human resource trends, there are still the
Generation Y to consider, born from 1982-2002. These groups of workers have been
shown to have short attention spans, are technology dependent and savvy, and are
more interested in blending the work they do into their lifestyles.

Still, compared to the traditionalists, born between 1925 and 1942, work ethic or work
demands were never discussed and just performed. Authority was never questioned and
directives given were directives completed.

The project manager must rethink their human resource skills especially with these new
human resource management trends on the horizon.
2.0 Total Quality Management (TQM)

Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management approach that originated in the

1950s and has increasingly become more popular since the early 1980s. TQM means
that the organisation’s culture is defined by and supports the constant attainment of
customer satisfaction through an integrated system of tools, techniques, and training.
This involves the continuous improvement of organisational processes, resulting in high
quality products and services.

The objective of TQM to be implemented are to improve the process, prevent defection,
priorities efforts, developing cause-relationships, measuring system capacity, developing
improvement checklist and check forms, helping teams make better decisions,
developing operational definitions, separating trivial from significant needs, and
observing behavior changes over a period of time.

3.0 Total Quality Management (TQM) of Toyota.

For Toyota, the most important of these efforts are what took place in the late 1960s. At
that time Toyota, a truck manufacturer, decided to begin producing passenger cars and
they made a determined effort to appraise and improve their methods at a fundamental
level. They succeeded phenomenonally at this and by 1980 were producing the highest
quality automobiles in the world. They called their new methods "Total Productive
Maintenance" or TPM.

What Toyota discovered was that the dominant cause of product defects was wear in
the machines that made the parts. In turn this wear was caused by the accumulation of
dirt and chips (metal shavings). The problem was that workers followed the basic
American practice which was to operate a machine until it broke and only then call in an
engineer to fix the machine. In some cases they would just throw the machine away and
order a new one from America. This resulted in defective parts as the machine wore
down and lack of productivity while the machine was waiting to be fixed or replaced.
Another complication was that workers tended to move from machine to machine and
often confusion resulted. How could systemic problems like this be fixed? To solve the
problems Toyota completely changed the way it operated its plants.

3.1 Improve the process

First of all, they stopped moving workers around as much and assigned workers to have
responsibility over individual machines. The next step was to require workers to keep
special notebooks documenting their machine. Before this was done machines were
more or less black boxes to the workers. The new way required the men to document
not only how the machine operated, but its entire maintenance history and how it
worked internally. Workers started taking apart their machines to learn about them and
document their findings. Instead of hoarding mechanical knowledge in a few absentee
engineers every worker started to have this kind of expertise.

3.2 Prevent defection

The next step was to tackle the dirt. In the 1965 Toyota's factories looked like American
factories: chips and dirt everywhere. They would change that. Since dirt was responsible
for the wear that was causing defects it would be eliminated. They started on the
outside by creating sweeping and cleaning regimens. Then they started regularly taking
apart their machines to clean them. Finally they put their expertise to work and started
designing special guards and covers to keep dirt and chips out of machines
permanently.

3.3 Priorities efforts

The last step in the equation was systematic preventative maintenance. Part of their
documentation efforts was to carefully study any irregularity in machine operation. For
example, if a machine began to vibrate in the old days they would ignore it until the
machine broke, like Americans. In the new way they would immediately stop any
machine that was vibrating and take apart the machine to discover the cause. Because
they now actually had started to learn how the machines worked internally this was
possible. The worker (NOT an engineer) would then attempt to fix the problem. In some
cases these procedures led Toyota to actually redesign and modify parts inside their
tooling to improve it.

3.4 Developing cause-relationships

In order for them to perform brilliantly, there are two prerequisites. First, everyone has
to agree on what they want, and second everyone has to agree on cause and effect.
Let’s assume that everyone in your organization agrees on the results they want, their
values and priorities, and the trade-offs they are willing to make in order to achieve
those results. The question to ask is "does everyone agree on cause and effect?".

Is there general agreement on what actions will result in system-wide cost reduction?
Are individual departments expected to reduce costs independently, or is it clear that
departments must work together to reduce overall system costs, even at the expense of
costs in individual departments? Are the measurements in place to reduce the costs of
crossing boundaries?

Is there general agreement on the best way to achieve consistent results through
standardization? Are standards always followed? If not, do you really understand the
root cause – are the standards irrelevant or inaccurate, too complex, or too far from the
actual work being done? Are standards maintained by a central process group, or are
they continually improved by the people doing the work? Are front line people
expected and encouraged to continually challenge and change standards?

Do you have a project scheduling system aimed at optimizing utilization? Does the
management team believe that the system is in fact optimizing utilization? Do people
believe that full utilization is the right measurement to emphasize? Is time-to-market an
important factor in your business? Does everyone agree on the relationship between
time-to-market and utilization?

The end results of these efforts are well-known, not only did Toyota start making the
highest quality cars in the world but by 1980 they dominated the import market. Today
Toyota is the most profitable car manufacturer in the world by a large margin.

3.5 Quality Measurement

The management has come out with its own checklist for individual departments to
measure its quality. This is because different departments have different ways of doing
things. This checklist from time to time they can measure the quality of it and to
continuously improve it.

3.6 Customer Satisfaction

All the integrated system of tools, techniques, training and continuous improvement off
organizational processes being used in Toyota is to reach a common goal which is to
satisfies its’ customers. In Malaysia itself, most car consumers prefers Toyota’s car. From
the word of mouth of the consumers, we could hear lots of compliment on Toyota’s car.
Some is praising Toyota for their reliability of customer service, the features of car
safety, higher market value and so on.

4.0 Conclusion

The managerial trends of TQM definitely show positive results in Toyota. TQM were
implemented, and Toyota have improved their process, prevent defection, priorities
efforts, helping teams make better decisions, and most importantly improve their
customer satisfaction to be the most profitable car manufacturer in the world today.
TQM is applied to ensure the continuous improvement in quality of their products and
also customer service in the company. This also would create a systematic and control
working environment to ensure smooth operations and to create a better working
environment.

Introduction

The role for the human resource management is evolving with the change in today’s
competitive market environment and the realization that they must play a more
strategic role in the success of an organization. An organization needs to be more
adaptable, resilient, agile, and customer-focused to succeed. But the same old
challenges faces by most organizations throughout the world are the equal employment
opportunity and the management of diversity.

Human Resource Management (HRM) are important because it can be significant source
of competitive advantages as the people-oriented HR give an organization an edge by
creating superior shareholder value, to achieve competitive success through people
whereby managers must change how they think about their employees and how they
view the work relationship and to treat them as partners rather than costs to be
minimized, and lastly improving to high-performance work practices.

Other than that, HRM in every organization should implement equal employment
opportunity and the management of diversity to ensure the workplaces is free from all
forms of unlawful discrimination and harassment. But this is rather tricky as human
behaviors and word of mouth is difficult to manage or to be controlled. Additional to
that, the HRM should ensure that their organizations are ready to deliver a good quality
service to their customers.

Equal Employment Opportunity and the Management of Diversity

Equal employment opportunity for all employees means, the employees are treated
fairly, free from discrimination and harassment. All the employees are treated equally
without regards to race, color, religion or belief, national, social or ethnic origin, sex
(including pregnancy), age, physical, mental or sensory disability, HIV status, sexual
orientation, gender identity and/or expression, marital, civil union or domestic
partnership status, past or present military service, family medical history or genetic
information, family or parental status, or any other status protected by the laws or
regulations. Meanwhile, management of diversity is the focus on maximizing the ability
of these employees to contribute to organizational goals.
In the western developed countries like United States, the equal employment
opportunity and the management of diversity is a very sensitive issue. In the U.S., there
are several laws that supports this and they are ‘Equal Pay Act’, ‘Civil Right Act’, ‘Age
Discrimination in Employment Act’, ‘Vocational Rehabilitation Act’, ‘Americans with
Disabilities Act’, and many more to protect the employee to be treated fairly in a
workplace environment.

Management of diversity should implement fair practices and behavior in the workplace
to ensure new employees are being recruited fairly, selection and promotion process are
based on the best applicant for the job, access for all employee to training and
development, flexible working arrangements that meet the needs of employees to
create a productive workplace, involving employees in the decision making process
without bias on their decisions, access to information and allows their views to be heard,
grievance handling procedures that are accessible to all employee and deal with
workplace complaints promptly, confidentially and fairly.

Example 1: There is a vacancy in company A, the interviewer who is a Chinese man

interviews the first applicant who is a Malay lady for a vacancy position. Although the
first applicants fulfill the qualification requirements for the position, she is rejected due
to the difference of race and religion. Next applicant, a Chinese man who does not fulfill
the required qualifications for the position is accepted.

The example above shows that the management of the company A is not treating fairly
and they are being bias and racist.

Example 2: An interviewer who happens to be a Malay guy interviews a Malay lady

candidate. The candidate does not fulfill all the requirements to perform the job but she
is required by the interviewer to perform sexually treatment for him in order for her to
get the job.

In the Example 2, we can see that the interviewer is sexually harassing the candidate to
secure the vacant position in the company and this is against the Equal Employment
Opportunity.

Example 3: There is a job posting of a vacancy for a pilot position in the airlines
company. Michael applied for the position and went to meet the interviewer, Jonathan
although Michael is blind. Jonathan has to turn down Michael’s application as being
unfit for the position.

In example 3, although the Equal Employment Opportunity emphasis of not to

discriminate the differences of race, gender, religion, and many more, in this case
Jonathan who is the interviewer have not violates the law as the law recognize that a
visually impaired person could not be an airline pilot.

3.0 Quality Readiness

Quality readiness of an organization’s products or services is the reliably of what it is

supposed to do and to satisfy the customers’ expectations. Quality problems are indeed
expensive.

Many experts believe the organizations unable to produce high quality products and
would not able to compete successfully in the marketplace. An issue that a manager
must address is "How is quality achieved?" A good way to look at what kind of quality to
be achieved is by planning and set a specific target to achieve the desired quality.
Information on the quality of a product which the consumer wants or expected can be
obtained by having a questionnaire or studies on the consumers.

Next, after information is obtained, it should be discuss within the Research and
Development team to either set the standard of a quality what a consumers expect or to
do some amendments to the expected outputs of the products or services to be
outstanding. The team then should organize within the product line or the service
provider team.

To achieve the specific desire quality, the team should be lead to understand, exposed,
or sent to training to improve their knowledge in order to reach the common goal set
by the organization.

Lastly, it is important to control it to ensure that the quality does not deteriorate. In the
past, organizations do not bother the quality once the products or services are
successful in the market. Some choose to reduce the quality of it to maximize their
profit and some choose to ignore the deterioration of its quality. But in the recent years,
quality is so important to organizations to remain competitive in the market.
Organizations spend an expensive price tag to maintain and improve their quality to
satisfy the customers and to remain top in the market.

Example 4: Even though Apple has had phenomenal success with iPod, the batteries in
the first three versions died after 4 hours instead of lasting it up to 12 hours that the
buyers expects. Apple settlement with consumers cost close to $100 million.

In the Example above, the company pays a hefty price for the defect of quality to the
consumers as the products is not a good quality.
Example 5: Mobile Company A has just design and creates a new edge technology
smart phone. They manufactured a small number of it to be given to the employees of
the company to be tested out. Then the employees are required to comments or gave
suggestions on the products. This comments and suggestions will be taken and the
company will improve the quality of the smart phones.

In this example, we could see that the company is a quality conscious. The company is
willing to manufacture a number of smart phones to be given out to the employees so
that they could improve the quality or any defects of the smart phones before they
could market it out to consumers around the world.

Example 6: In the line production line, a checklist is being given to the quality control
employees. This quality checklist is to ensure that every parts of the electronic chip
components are being installed before it is given to another department for further
installation process.

In the example 6, a checklist is being used to ensure that every single electronic chip is
being installed rather than depending on human brain to remember what chips to be
installed.

4.0 Recommendations

In Malaysia, the government should revise the law, to come up with a strict enforcement
to avoid discrimination and harassment to the employees. This will guarantee the
government agencies and organizations in the private sectors to ensure that their
working environments are implementing management diversity to ensure the
employees are being treated fairly and maximizing the ability of these employees to
contribute to organizational goals.

Quality readiness is a must have thing in an organization. Tools such as checklist,

questionnaires, customer service, feedback form, and many more could be used to
obtain feedback, complains or suggestions from their consumers. This will eventually
help them to know what the weakness areas are and they could find ways to improve
the quality or its products or services. Sending employees for training from time to time
also could help to maintain and improve the quality of the products or services and at
the mean time the employees can develop further their skills and knowledge, reduce
staff turnovers, reduce errors, improve productivity and improve the organization
competitiveness. All this will ensure a the quality to improve from time to time to ensure
it is at the acceptable level and ready to be provided to its consumers.
5.0 Conclusion

Human resource management will be facing numbers of challenges such as quality

readiness, equal employment opportunity (EEO) and the management of diversity. To
ensure that the organization is practicing EEO and management of diversity, everyone
should play their part to obey the law and to practice a fair, free from discrimination and
harassment to create a healthy working environment. Quality readiness it essential to
organizations as it helps them to improve the quality of products or services from time
to time to remain competitive in the market. Quality assurance standards such as the
ISO 9000 series can be achieve and obtained to be globally recognized in order to get
consumers attention and confidence towards the organization.