dc.description.abstract | While many main automobile companies of the world such as Mercedes Benz, General Motor and Ford encounter financial difficulties, Toyota released an awe-inspiring estimation of their 2006 earnings—sales revenue of 230 billion yen and profit of 200 billion yen—that once again broke Japan’s record in April 2007. Their global sales volume in the first season of 2007 also surpassed that of American General Motor (2.34 million versus 2.26 million), becoming number one of the world. Yet the most astounding fact is that no foreseeable company will be challenging Toyota’s leading status in the near future.
The key factor of Toyota’s leadership in the motor business is its superior performance in quality and cost. They present high-quality and cost-efficient products to their costumers, earning their admiration and trust. Yet the real reason behind Toyota’s success and growth is its thorough implementation of “manpower incubation” throughout the company. This allows inheritance of experience and accumulation of knowledge and skills, creating the Toyota miracle with shared ideals and values in Japan’s culture.
The main motive of this study is to use Toyota’s successful model as a subject matter and, by studying the individual cases of Toyota’s overseas subsidiaries, allow companies that wish to acquire Toyota’s management system to see that Toyota’s success is not only based on management skills and techniques, but is strongly connected to “people”. Therefore, the study emphasizes on how the branch companies’ manpower incubation and specific operation methods influence quality and cost. Through this study, we hope to reduce the waste of time and resources of aspiring companies caused by perception errors. The study counter-validates and analyzes related literature, case company data and interviews with key persons to reach a conclusion.
The study shows:
1. Education and training are indispensable to manpower incubation. In order to enhance the effects of education, building trust between a company and its employees is essential.
2. The technical support and instructions of the Toyota parent company and the innovation of case companies provide great help in forming ideas of improving education and training. Meanwhile, they provide substantial benefits to quality and cost performance.
3. Achieving “Quality is designed and manufactured in the product” and “The cost reduction of Toyota production management” through a meticulous and comprehensive education and training system is one of the main reasons of the case companies’ superior cost-efficiency.
4. Constructing a culture and environment of “Respect and trust for people and exploitation of human intelligence” allows employees to understand their true values and goals, triggering self-motivation, self-discipline and creativity and the enhancement of quality and cost-efficiency.
5. Implementing the pursuit of quality and cost-efficiency throughout the company, emphasizing the ubiquity of education and advancing the legacy of experience and wisdom will create more able and knowledgeable people, which will then lead to the enhancement of quality and cost-efficiency. | en_US |