Toyota Motor Manufacturing
Toyota Motor Manufacturing – Assignment #6
Mgmt 660 - Professor Suresh Chand
Date: September 18, 2010
Toyota Assignment #6
(1) As Doug Friesen, what would you do to address the seat problem? Where would you focus your attention and solution efforts? What options exist? What would you recommend? Why? The first thing that should be addressed is finding what the actual reason for the problem is. In looking at the defect data from Exhibit 8, it identifies 5 seat defects that constitute 87% of the rejected seats from April 14 through April 30. In looking at Exhibit 10, it can be ascertained that the number of Andon pulls from the rear seat installation on both the left and right sides is more than 3 to 6 times higher in some cases than those of the front seat installations. Mr. Friesen should have a cross-functional team of TMM and KFS employees from various disciplines to begin the “5-Why” process on the top five defects: (1) material flaw, (2) missing part, (3) seat bolster broken, (4) wrong part, and (5) seat back broken. This will help in finding the actual root cause of the problem which should be addressed. Once the top 5 defects are addressed the team can repeat the process on the remaining defective issues; these issues will only make up a small percentage of the problems. The defects are more frequently associated with the rear seat installation station than the front seat installation and may also be linked to the new team members that have been rotated into the area at the beginning of April. The data from Exhibit 7 shows an increase in defects beginning in the month of April. The data does not confirm this, but this could be indentified in the 5-why process. Determining the root cause(s) of the defect(s) is the only way this issue will be accurately addressed so that it does not occur again in the future.
(2) Where, if anywhere, does the current routine for handling defective seats deviate from the principles of the Toyota Production
Mgmt 660 - Professor Suresh Chand
Date: September 18, 2010
Toyota Assignment #6
(1) As Doug Friesen, what would you do to address the seat problem? Where would you focus your attention and solution efforts? What options exist? What would you recommend? Why? The first thing that should be addressed is finding what the actual reason for the problem is. In looking at the defect data from Exhibit 8, it identifies 5 seat defects that constitute 87% of the rejected seats from April 14 through April 30. In looking at Exhibit 10, it can be ascertained that the number of Andon pulls from the rear seat installation on both the left and right sides is more than 3 to 6 times higher in some cases than those of the front seat installations. Mr. Friesen should have a cross-functional team of TMM and KFS employees from various disciplines to begin the “5-Why” process on the top five defects: (1) material flaw, (2) missing part, (3) seat bolster broken, (4) wrong part, and (5) seat back broken. This will help in finding the actual root cause of the problem which should be addressed. Once the top 5 defects are addressed the team can repeat the process on the remaining defective issues; these issues will only make up a small percentage of the problems. The defects are more frequently associated with the rear seat installation station than the front seat installation and may also be linked to the new team members that have been rotated into the area at the beginning of April. The data from Exhibit 7 shows an increase in defects beginning in the month of April. The data does not confirm this, but this could be indentified in the 5-why process. Determining the root cause(s) of the defect(s) is the only way this issue will be accurately addressed so that it does not occur again in the future.
(2) Where, if anywhere, does the current routine for handling defective seats deviate from the principles of the Toyota Production