How Toyota Successfully Implmented Change Process...

How Toyota Successfully Implemented Change Process Principles to Improve Production Executive Summary Change is about survival, change management is about modifying or transforming organisations in order to maintain or improve their effectiveness. Change is especially necessary in organisations that aim to prosper in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environment. Change is also known to be a key source of competitive advantage. This case study will focus on Toyota and how they implemented different techniques to improve their production process and working environment for their employees. The main focus in this case study will describe how they used the ‘Just-in-Time’ concept to reduce waste and upgrade the quality of its†¦show more content†¦The company that I will base this case study on is Toyota. They realized the need for change, not only for short term monetary gain but a conscience organizational awareness to align employees so that they share the same understanding of the company’s policies, principles and goals. Toyota has come a long way from its humble beginnings. It used to be a ‘weave factory’ (Chen, 2007). Today, Toyota has ‘more than 14 subsidiaries, car factories in U.S.A and Canada, and its profits are more than double that of Ford and General Motor’s’ (Toyota, 2007). Its revenue comes from sales of vehicles in its Toyota range, Lexus and Scion, the latter, which is aimed at younger consumers. The type of change Toyota implemented is proactive as discussed in week 1 of lectures. They knew that by changing their production system and workforce mindsets, they could reduce costs and improve productivity. Starting from the 1960’s to 1970’s they developed the Toyota Production System (TPS) and broke it down into the various steps illustrated below: Toyota Total Production System Figure 1 Toyota Production System (1Tech, 2007) In order to make the integration of this process work, employees had to understand their roles within the organization, the foundation of which was heavily focused on managing their own individual activities and quality assurance of the entire process of vehicle production. The concept of ‘Just in Time’