With over seventy years in the car manufacturing industry, Toyota is ranked third largest motor vehicle company with a record of producing high-quality vehicles with high technology (Monden, 2011). The company has grown drastically over the years having its headquarters Toyota City, Japan founded in 1919. Being the home of the Toyota Company, there are 12 manufacturing plants in Japan and an additional of 52 more plants in 26 countries where it has extended its global market (Monden, 2011). A look at the market capitalization shows that the company is ahead of similar manufacturing companies such as Ford and General Motors where it owns more than $50 billion (Monden, 2011). Because Toyota Motor Corporation is a global company, it is evident that there are millions of activities and operations taking place at its premises day in day out all over the world. Thus, quality control measures are required to ensure that the company continues to manufacture quality cars that meet the customers' needs while at the same time minimizing cost. Importantly, as the vice chairman and the spearhead to the quality control much remains to be done to ensure that all the departments within the company are working toward the same goal.
The first step will be setting goals for the company. The goals include both short term and long term goals, and each will be peculiar to an individual department. The first short-term goal will be to enhance supplier collaboration to improve quality. The manufacturing unit will improve their collaboration with the providers to ensure that they provide quality parts which translate to making quality cars. The second short-term goal is to fit all the new vehicles with the latest safety designs. The security departments will liaise with the technology team to come up with better and unique safety features to be fitted to the cars. A long term goal will have more manufacturing plants globally to be able to extend the market and meet the customer's needs.
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To be able to achieve the aims and objects, there is the need to reorganization within my department. Usually, the directors report twice in a week about their progress. The new plan is to have each director give a report at the end of every day concerning the progress made within the day. There will also be mid-week meetings of which efforts will be made to have a trainer to give a refresher or strategies needed to achieve the set goals. The interdepartmental meeting is aimed at ensuring that all departments are working in unity and offering a platform where they can share ideas and solutions for challenges faced (Amasaka, 2012).
To be able to achieve the goals, my department will most definitely need help from other agencies. First, the training department will come in handy to ensure that al, the employees receive the training they require. They will be responsible for organizing and holding the training. Most important, the finance department must be involved to give the financial support needed. Also, the finance department will carry out an audit to ensure that the money was used as planned.
As a leader who has just been given such a huge responsibility, it is just normal that there will be a lot of challenges. It is important to note that not all people appreciate change and some of them might be so resistant to change (Amasaka, 2012). Resistance to change is one of the most expected challenges. The resistance leads to conflicts because one may not be willing to follow the new guidelines making it hard to move in the same direction harmoniously. Another challenge while trying to bring about change in the systems of an organization is the financial constraints. Some of the measures such as installing new safety facilities and organizing frequent training may not be in the budget for the company and thus finances may be a hitch. The finances may not be available, and thus plans may have to be held, and this might affect the change process.
For better coordination and control, the directors must possess some leadership skills. To begin with, the most crucial, the director in charge of manufacturing must be responsible. He must be keen to ensure that all the systems that go into manufacturing a car are according to the given guidelines and quality. Having the correct systems will ensure that standard and quality cars are manufactured (Mitra, 2016). Secondly, the director of the safety systems should be accountable. He should ensure that only tested security systems are installed in the vehicles, and he should also be ready to explain any problem with the systems. He should scrutinize all the facilities and carry out testing to ensure that only the quality ones are used. Lastly, the director for materials that get into the car should be honest. He comes into a direct client with the suppliers and thus they should only operate on reasonable deals and should not be lured to corruption or accepting substandard parts.
References
Amasaka, K. (2012). Science SQC, new quality control principle: The quality strategy of Toyota . Springer Science & Business Media.
Mitra, A. (2016). Fundamentals of quality control and improvement . John Wiley & Sons.
Monden, Y. (2011). Toyota production system: an integrated approach to just-in-time . CRC Press.
