Process Improvement Essay Example for Free

Process Improvement Essay ABSTRACT This document will be evaluating an existing process within Toyota during the time of their accelerator crisis. A problem statement will be defined around the process of internal communication of concerns and ideas between foreign-based Toyota employees and the authoritative management of Toyota based in Japan. PROBLEM ANALYSIS OF SELECTED PROCESS Problem framing is a very important, but easily overlooked, part of decision-making. Framing a problem can have a heavy influence on the decisions that are made. It isnt enough to frame the problem; it should be framed with the solution in mind. This helps to keep the end goal of the decision-making process in mind so that the correct choices are made. In the case of Toyota, at the highest level, they had a major problem with some of their products involving unintended acceleration and their handling of  customer reports of the problem led to a whole mess of other problems. So from the outside looking in, it seems that many processes internal to Toyota had room for improvement. Although there are many different business sections of Toyota with their own respective problems such as customer service, public relations, manufacturing, the problem I would like analyze and offer improvement on is internal communication process between management and foreign employees and how the breakdown in this process affected some of the business decisions made by Toyotas upper management. As Toyota grew into a global powerhouse in the auto industry, the organizational structure that emerged was a centralized design †¦that put key decision-making in the hands of executives in Japan†¦ Some believed that Toyotas structure in the U.S. ultimately impaired its ability to prevent the safety problems before they reached the crisis (Greto, Schotter Teagarden, 2010, pg. 7-8). A quality tool or method used to help with the identification and prioritization of the potential causes of quality problems in a process is cause-and-effect analysis. In a way, this is a reverse engineering method used to identify the elements of a specific quality problem and to identify the causes so that it can be corrected. The problem wasnt the unintended acceleration of certain vehicles; the problem was the internal management decision-making that impacted the engineering of those vehicles which created the engineering problem. For some background information, the defining and founding philosophy of Toyota, the Toyota Way, has been around for a long time but it wasnt until the late 1980s in which they began production of their vehicles in the U.S. Specifically the problem of ideas from U.S.-based employees has been largely ignored for almost 20 years when it comes to key engineering or financial-based decisions. Despite the global sales volume gain, Toyota reported revenues of US $211 billion for 2009, a decrease of 19% for the previous year (Greto, Schotter Teagarden, 2010, pg. 2). Even though Toyota has been making large profits throughout the past 20 years, they experienced a decrease in 2009 and part of this was related to the ambitious initiatives and business decisions made by Toyotas upper management. Japan is notoriously consensus oriented, and companies have a strong tendency to mediate differences among individuals rather than accentuate them (Porter, 1996, pg. 63). Japanese culture and Toyotas centralized decision-making structure made it difficult for U.S. based employees to offer ideas, suggestions for improvements, or to elevate critical problems to upper management in Japan. Toyotas upper management, in their minds, let the U.S. employees do what they do best, which is supposedly marketing and selling. The process used by Toyota to communicate foreign employees ideas to upper management was heard, but not listened to. Even the process of internal communication between management had its breakdowns because of the perception by family-oriented managers of nonfamily managers in that nonfamily members didnt have such thoughts as safety and quality in the forefront of their minds. Overall, the communication process seemed to be that ideas were submitted from employees, whether by Japanese or foreign employees, to management and ideas were reviewed and pushed up the management chain when it was appropriate. However, ideas that might have some bearing on engineering, manufacturing or financing were largely ignored when the source of the ideas were from U.S.-based employees and this violated the Toyota Way. To add to the complexity, the process for communicating ideas became more convoluted depending on the audience, nonfamily or family-based managers. To sum this up into a problem statement: Toyota has violated their founding philosophy of employee empowerment, especially for non-Japanese employees, and continues to make important business decisions without any regard to concerns or ideas from foreign employees when appropriate. Employees may have ideas that could be used in the decision-making process to achieve better quality solutions. Toyota needs a better mechanism or improvement to this internal communication process to capture the knowledge and ideas of all employees and to share these ideas across the organization. All in all, its to improve the internal communication process bet ween employees and management in order to support the idea of continuous improvement and quality. CONTEXT OF SELECTED PROCESS FOR IMPROVEMENT The _Toyota Way_ mandates planning for the long term; highlighting problems  instead of hiding them; encouraging team work with colleagues and suppliers; and, perhaps most importantly, instilling a self-critical culture that fosters continuous and unrelenting improvement (Greto, Schotter Teagarden, 2010, pg. 3). Two cores ideas from the statement above are the idea of team work and most importantly employee empowerment. These two values are what made Toyota into a successful global corporation during their fast rise in the 1980s. Employees were encouraged to offer ideas for improvement for any process within the organization and this helped with continuing the idea of continuous improvement. An important part of making business decisions is having real-time and critical information. The selected process for improvement: improving the communication of ideas and concerns and the sharing of foreign employees ideas to Toyotas Japanese management team needs to be addressed immediately. The process selected for improvement is the process used to capture the ideas of all employees, U.S.-based included, and to have these ideas be properly represented and presented to management for review in real-time. You know the joke that every bank branch has a president well, every Toyota facility has a president, and one cant tell another what to do (Greto, Schotter Teagarden, 2010, pg. 8). This statement touches the surface of why the internal management communication process needs improvement at Toyota. The way the process is currently being represented in Toyotas organization is a complete violation of their founding philosophy. During the 2000s, Toyota pushed for a lot of initiatives that in hindsight were either short-term profit driven or too ambitious. For example, despite the savings of more than US $10 billion over the six years since CC21s inception, Watanabe set out to achieve even more cost savings through the new VI (Value Innovation) strategy (Greto, Schotter Teagarden, 2010, pg. 5). This was a business decision made to further drive up profits despite the respectable amount of savings already made financially. If the knowledge, ideas and concerns of employees were properly captured and communicated to management, it could have prevented some of the poor business decision-making made and the impact of these decisions on engineering and manufacturing. Two impacts of the poor decision-making was the decision to become leaner with the manufacturing process and  overstretching existing resources in trying to supplant GM as number on in the automobile industry. Toyotas has employees in many different markets who most likely had concerns regarding these decisions or ideas on how to improve the ideas and _communicated_ these ideas but these ideas werent being heard in time or heard at all by management. To put this all into context, the process for communicating ideas and concerns internally is impacted by the culture and internal structure of Toyota. These are both tough things to change but the process used to capture and represent ideas to management is something easy to improve. IMPLICATIONS OF THE PROCESS If the current internal communication process continues as is, there will continue to be a breakdown in the communication of potentially important ideas and concerns from employees to management. If employees feel as if their input isnt listened to or even heard, they will become apathetic or not even bother trying to communicate important ideas or concerns. As a result, this can lead to the cycle of poor business decisions being made resulting in more damage to the company. Even worse, this will continue to cause Toyota to stray away from the core values of the Toyota Way that made them a successful global corporation. Already what has happened as a result of the ignoring of ideas and making business decisions with only the goal of short-term profits in mind is that Toyota during the oil sludge crisis had to pay millions of dollars as a result of class action lawsuits and took a hit to their business image. Fast forward to the accelerator crisis, Toyota experienced losing $2 billion dollars during the recall, had to pay a $16.4 million dollar civil penalty under U.S. law, experienced a customer relations nightmare and even had some of their car models dropped from Consumer Reports. The dollar amount lost due to the alienation of customers, lack of accountability at first by Toyota, and corporate reputation and image hit is immeasurable. Implementing some mechanism to improve the communication process between  employees and management and even management can be improved with the use of something such as a knowledge management system. Effective knowledge management tools can help firms reduce internal costs of maintaining electronic filing systems and reduce the administrative expense of locating documents. Second, just as efficiency can improve profitability, leverage can have the same effect where knowledge transfer enhances the quality of work performance, and therefore, its value. In this context, leverage is the ability to delegate work to the most cost-effective resource. The transfer of knowledge is, in fact, the essence of knowledge management (Martin, 2002, pg. 1). Although it is a large internal expense, the benefits of a KM system would have a great effect on the general business results and business relationships of Toyota with its employees, management and even their supply chain. POTENTIAL OUTCOMES OF IMPROVING THE PROCESS Improving the current internal communication process of ideas and concern helps to improve employee relations between management and their reports. It helps to re-establish a culture of knowledge sharing and representing that captured knowledge in such a way that it can help to improve the business decision-making by upper management. Any important business decisions made by upper management have a direct impact on the shareholders. So any improvement in the process that results in better business decisions being made will have a direct positive impact for the shareholders. The current decision-making and straying away from the founding principles of the Toyota Way has damaged the company and continuing down this path will only make the future worse for Toyota. So having an internal mechanism to capture ideas and improve communication such as a KM system can only improve the situation. Employees would feel like their ideas are being heard and will continue to offer suggestions for continual improvement. An improvement in communication can help to break down the false perceptions that family-oriented managers have of nonfamily managers. For example, a family-based manager might come across an idea from an unexpected source, a nonfamily manager, and come to respect that person for their knowledge. In a  way, this could help to improve the Japanese culture way of making decisions internally. Toyota is almost in the top of their market, so they are their own worst enemy when it comes to being competitive. So an improvement in their internal decision-making around all important financial, engineering and manufacturing decisions will only help to sustain and further their current competitive edge. Sometimes an organization has to make a large internal expense in order to position themselves differently from their competitors. Strategic positioning means performing _different_ activities from rivals or performing similar activities in _different_ ways (Porter, 1996, pg. 62). So collecting ideas internally and using them to make better business decisions will help Toyota to strategically position themselves even further away from their competition. SUMMARY Overall, Toyota is its own worst enemy with the current decision-making process they have in place internally. Even though the centralized decision-making structure is what Toyota currently has in place, the decision-making needs to take into account employee input, whether foreign or not. Employee input has been a cornerstone of the Toyota Way and Toyota has strayed from this founding principle. The implications of continuing down this path will result in more crises which in turn results in loss business, damaged business reputation, lawsuits and losing the competitive edge. Improving this process will result in better employee relations; establish a knowledge sharing culture which is needed for an environment that is striving for continual improvement and better business decisions being made. REFERENCES Greto, M., Schotter, A., Teagarden, M. (2010). Toyota: The accelerator crisis. Thunderbird School of Global Management. Martin, K. (2002). Features Show Me the Money Measuring the Return on Knowledge Management. LLRX. Retrieved from http://www.llrx.com/features/kmroi.htm Porter, M. E. (1996). What is strategy? _Harvard Business Review, 74_(6), 61-78. Russell, R.S., Taylor, B.W. (2011). _Operations management: Creating value along the supply chain_ (7th ed.)_._ Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley Sons. ISBN: 9780470525906

Essay --

In the book Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein is very much interested in sciences and anatomy. As he continues studying these things he attempts to create a human like creature. Victor is successful in the creation of this creature, but when the creature awakes for the first time Victor is terrified by his appearance. Victor runs out of the room, but when he finally returns he finds that the creature is no longer there. Victor has created a horrible monster. This creature ends up murdering many people and terrorizing many. Many of the people that this monster kills are people that are very close to Victor Frankenstein. This monster is very intelligent, he can learn at a fast pace simply by observing others. The monster learned many things by just observing others, he even learned his language skills by listening to other people talking. All he did to learn how to talk was listen to everybody else talk, he just picked up on it and ran with it. This is an incredibly smart thing to be able to do. We grow up learning to talk by hearing others talk as we are babies, our parents...

Geologic Time Worksheet Axia W3D5

Associate Level Material Mary Miles Geologic Time Worksheet Use the following table to compare ways of evaluating geologic time. Your description, similarities, and differences must each be at least 50 words. |Time Evaluation Method |Description |Advantages of this Method |Disadvantages of this Method | |Relative dating |Relative dating is the process |There are a few advantages of |The disadvantage to relative | | |of estimating the order of |relative dating.One is that |dating is that an exact time | | |events but not necessarily |this is an estimate of the age |cannot be given to a rock | | |determining when the events |of a structure. Meaning that |structure or fossil. This method| | |occurred.When looking at rocks |there is room for error. This |is only an estimate and because | | |and fossils the deeper the |method is good if weathering or |of that the true time in which a| | |structure or fossil the older it|erosion is prevalent. Because |rock structure or fossil was | | |is.D uring this process there is|some of the rock structure is |started or deposited cannot be | | |not exact age or date that is |missing or interrupted exact age|determined. | | |given to a rock or fossil only |would not be able to be found. | | | |an estimate of when it stated or| | | | |was alive. | | |Absolute dating |Absolute dating is a process in |The advantage to absolute dating|The disadvantage of absolute | | |which geologists or other earth |is that an exact age can be |dating is not every rock | | |scientists determine the |determined for a rock structure |structure or fossil’s exact age | | |specific age of a rock |or fossil. This is beneficial to|cannot be determined.Depending | | |structure, fossil or other |scientists to help determine the|on where a fossil is found or | | |scientific site or structure. |age of the earth and the rock |what mineral make up the rock | | |Absolute dating allows a |structures it contains. |structure will determine if | | |numerical ag e to be determined | |absolute dating would be | | |for a fossil or strata. |appropriate. | In the following space, explain the role of fossils in developing the Geologic column. Your explanation must be between 200 and 300 words. The geologic column is the putting together all known strata and matching them up in chronological order. Fossils are an important factor when developing the Geologic column. Depending on if there are any fossils present in a sediment layer and if there are determining what the fossil is can help determine which eon all strata stated to form in.The geologic column is divided to several different time frames. These time frames are referred to as eons, eras, periods and epochs. Most of the Earth’s existence can be separated into three eons. Each eon in earth’s existence lasted at least a hundred million years. The first two eons that earth existed fossils were very rare or hard to find. Those two eons are referred to as the Archean eon and the Proterozoic. The most recent area is referred to as the Phanerozoic eon. The Phanerozoic eon is the most recent eon and is the only eon that contains a lot of fossils.Significant changes happened to the fossil assembly during the three eras that took place during the Phanerozoic eon. The three eras of the Phanerozic eon are Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic. These eras have been divided by significant extinction events. The era that is very important is the Paleozoic. This is because during this time was the first appearance of hard bodied animals that fossilize much better then soft bodied organisms. Reference: Murck, B. W. , Skinner, B. J. , & Mackenzie, D. (2010). Visualizing geology (2nd ed. ). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Four Seasons Goes to Panama - 1301 Words

INTRODUCTION Panama is with the most important airport hubs in Latin America and Panama’s Government is going to extend Panama Canal which would increase the number of tourists. These days, the industries of construction and hotel are expending quickly and the supplyI is unable to meet the demand about the rooms especially in the peak seasons. I thnk it’s the best opportunity for Four Seasons to start a hotel in Panama OVERVIEW OF FOUR SEASON HOTELS Founded by Isadore Sharp in 1960, Four Seasons Hotels Resorts (FSHR) started its first hotel in Toronto, Ontario in 1961 (now its headquarters.) So far, there are 80 hotels in more than 30 countries around the word under Four Seasons Hotels Resorts chain which are positioned to be†¦show more content†¦In so-called Special Tourism Zones, Law 8 offers incentives such as 100% exemption from income tax, real estate tax, import duties for construction materials and equipment, and other taxes. Panama has declared different parts of the country as Special Tourism Zones which are benefited with multiple tax exemptions and tax holidays ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT Panama uses US dollar as currency since 1904 so that dollarization results in low inflation and interest rates. That’s why Panama is the most stable country among Latin America because Panama has kapt its annual inflation rate under two percent for almost 40 years. Further, dollarization eliminates any currency exange risks to foreign companies. Tourism is the fastest growing industry in Panama, according to statistics provided by the Panama Tourism Bureau, IPAT (STATISTICS REPORT 1997-2006), in 2007 the tourism industry contributed $1.45 billion dollars to the nation s economy. This amount represents 9.5 percent of Panama s total Gross Domestic Product, making it the largest single industry in the country (Panama Canal Cruise). By comparison, in 2006 the Panama Canal generated $1.08 billion dollars in income while the total economic impact of the Colon Free Zone was a paltry $696.2 million dollars. Labor force in Panama is 1.362 million that the number of unskilled labor are more than the number of skilled labor (Panama Labor force – Economy).Show MoreRelatedPanam A Unique Country1540 Words   |  7 Pagesresearched Panama and discovered that it is a very unique country. Traits such as religion, geography, and food are great examples when showing Panama’s differences from other countries. Sports is also another sample that illustrates Panama’s self-faith, which is going to be my first topic. The main sport of Panama is baseball. The stadium is located eight kilometers from the city centre and named after Rod Carew, a Major League Baseball Hall-of-Fame player that actually originated from Panama. As aRead Moreâ€Å"Miss Brill†1525 Words   |  7 PagesMiss Brill is a short story written by Katherine Mansfield and it was published in a collection of stories called The Garden Party in 1922. The story is about a woman who goes to her usual Sunday afternoon walk on Jardins Publiques and what happened there with her that day. In order to provide a study guide about this short story, this paper will analyze the the structure of Plot and the Characters created by the author on Miss Brill. Considering Plot, Miss Brill is a story about a lonely woman whoRead MoreEssay on HISTORY1490 Words   |  6 Pagesï » ¿Name: Date: Graded Assignment Final Exam Part 2 I. Map On this world map, indicate the following features: Amazon Rainforest Panama Canal The Himalayas The Ring of Fire The Mississippi River The Gobi Desert (10 points) II. Graphic Organizer Fill in the table below about these five major world religions. Do not fill in the shaded boxes. (10 points) Religion Name at least one Holy Text How do you achieve enlightment? Describe their view about the afterlife. HinduismRead MoreThe Cruise And Royal Caribbean Cruise2850 Words   |  12 Pagesis its affordability. Not only is Carnival Cruise prices appeal to younger people in their twenties but it also travels to almost every part of the world including 20 North American, the Caribbean, Bahamas, Mexican Riviera, Alaska, Canada, Hawaii, Panama Canal, Bermuda, Mediterranean, South America, Tahiti, The Fiji Islands, New Zealand, Norway, the Baltic and the British Isles for a decent price. For anyone, going on a cruise ship is a wonderful choice to escape life’s stressors and completely relaxRead MoreArticle Critique: Study on Belo Monte Dam Project6348 Words   |  26 Pagesproblems, and silt has built up in the water, and in Panama where stagnant water such as in a reservoirs can contribute to the reproduction of mosquitoes, and the spread of tropical disease. â€Å"It will produce only 10% of its 11,233 megawatt installed capacity during the dry season† - According to the Brazilian government Mines and Energy report, it will produce around 4,500MW annually on average. There is no way of knowing the capacity during the dry season as additional dams would have to be built upstreamRead MoreAloft3567 Words   |  15 Pagesthey stay at the hotel for comfort, as it is strategically located in San Jose, close to a wide variety of establishments and major business centers. The hotel mostly receives guest from, the United States and Canada, Central America, mostly from Panama, and Germany in Europe. The hotel offers all the necessary services to these customers, which will receive excellent care in high quality boutique hotel. Buyer characteristics Aloft customers are mainly executives who want to find a place closeRead More Leaf-cutting Ants Essay6337 Words   |  26 Pagesbe heterogeneous. Another important feature of the fungus garden is how long the substrate material will support the growth of the fungus. It is found that fungal gardens have a life cycle of 7 weeks to four months. The length of time the fungus can grow on the substrate is related to the season the type of substrate the ants use. The outside of the fungus garden is heterogeneous. The upper part is a green-gray color with large cells, and this is a young garden where most of the fresh substrate isRead MoreTqm in Starwood9288 Words   |  38 Pagesemployees at its owned and managed properties. Starwood Hotels and Resorts is a fully integrated owner, operator and franchisor of hotels and resorts with different internationally renowned brands of St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, Sheraton, Westin, Four Points by Sheraton, W, Le Mà ©ridien, Aloft and Element. It also owns one of the premier developers and operators of high-quality vacation interval ownership resorts, Starwood Vacation Ownership Resorts, Inc. The company began as a small investmentRead MoreMiss Brill5112 Words   |  21 Pagesprovide an integrative, systematic stylistic analysis of the short story, deriving its underlying theories from a method of prose text analysis, proposed by literary stylists Leech Short. The analysis is done in three main steps corresponding to the four main linguistic levels of a text: lexical levels, grammatically levels, figures of speech, and cohesion and context. Keywords: Style, Lexical feature, Grammatical feature, Rhetorical tool, Fine, Sensitive 1. Introduction Katherine Mansfield, pseudonymRead MoreMarket Analysis of Jeans Industry in Surat17928 Words   |  72 Pagesstructure as well as ability to attract customers with large orders. The central tendency is to add capacity once the order has been won rather than ahead of the demand. Customers go where they see both capacity and capabilities. Large capacity typically goes with standardized products. These firms need to develop the ma nagerial capabilities required to manage large work force and design an appropriate supply chain. For the size of the Indian economy, it will have to have bigger firms producing standard