Toyota Motor Manufacturing, U.S.A., Inc.
Answer 1
The car seat problem has incurred due to run ration of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Plant in USA that has resulted in a shortfall of about 45 cars in a single shift. Moreover, the cars were need to be completed before they could be shipped; therefore, off-line operations has become necessary. However, the major contributing factor to the problem is the car’s seat defect where the cars went on the company’s assembly line with all the defective seats. Moreover, there are two causes of car seat defects, i.e., flaw in materials and inappropriate parts which were supplied by Kentucky Framed Seat. Therefore, to address the problem, Doug Friesen should contact Kentucky Framed Seat and visit the supplier’s car seat manufacturing concern where its quality testing materials and machines should be inspected. Moreover, detailed inspection of the raw materials should be done on the basis of quality to ensure that zero defect car seat is obtained by Toyota Motor Manufacturing.
Answer 2
The major area of focus is quality testing of raw material and final products at contact Kentucky Framed Seat. Moreover, there should be an increased coordination between seat supplier and the plant operators of Toyota Manufacturing so that defective products should be identified quickly before the seats are sent to the assembly line for fixing. Furthermore, the report on the quality control and quality inspection should be requested on a routine basis so that future problems of defective car seats could be avoided.
Answer 3
On the basis of identified problem of car search, one option that could be used is that the seat assembly team should be revised as they are unable to identify issue which has caused delayed in taking corrective immediate action. In other case, all the seats supplied by Kentucky Framed seats should be inspected before they are sent to the assembly line. Similarly, another option that the company could consider is to improve and redesign off-line operations so that the reassembling process could be done quickly.
Answer 4
The workers on the assembly line should be encouraged to discuss the issues they are facing so that immediate action could be taken in case of a serious issue.
All the materials should be inspected twice before they are sent to assembly line to avoid delay in assembly and shipping of the final product, i.e., car.
Use JIT principle to ensure standard quality materials such as car seat is obtained from the supplier.
Answer 5
The case reveals that the current routine for managing defective seats has deviated from the company’s guiding principles in three different ways. Firstly, the high number of defective inventory deviates from just in time principle. Secondly, the measures taken were against the Jidoka principle that requires immediate corrective action. Thirdly, there was lack of future planning which deviates from the Kaizen principle.
Answer 6
The real problem faced by Doug Friesen is the poor identification of the issue that has affected overall process and delayed in immediate corrective action. Firstly, the seat solving procedure is incorrect. Secondly, the off-line operations are less suitable for car manufacturing plant. Thirdly, the company is dependent on only one supplier, i.e., Kentucky framed seats. Thirdly, the team of assembly line are inefficient that has delayed problem identification on a routine basis, such as delay in delivery of new seats, incidents of hook breakage and cross threading, etc. Thus, there are different problems that has led to one major problem car seat problem.
