Toyota Motor Manufacturing faced problems with defective seats supplied by their sole seat supplier, Kentucky Framed Seat. The defective seats caused Toyota's Georgetown plant to fall below their production targets and increased costs. While Toyota followed some of their Toyota Production System tools, they did not fully implement the system at Kentucky Framed Seat. Toyota's solutions included placing their own quality control personnel at the supplier to monitor production and resolve defects in real time, as well as reviewing seat designs for new models.
2. Group 2
• Dipawita Dey 120305
• Priyanka Hui Chowdhury 120316
• Nusrat Jahan 120329
12/11/2015 prepared by group 2 2
3. Content
• Company Overview
• Case summary
• Identified problem
• Consequence of problem
• Causes of the problem
• Solution of the problem
• Alternative recommendations
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4. Company overview
A Japanese automobiles manufacturer which
was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937.
Produces about 200-millionth vehicles
under 5 brands:
Toyota
Hino
Lexus
Ranz
Scion
The largest listed company in Japan by
market capitalization
The eleventh largest company in the world
by revenue.
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5. Case summary
Toyota’s Georgetown, Kentucky, plant was established with the aim of providing
flawless & high quality at low cost in 1985.
Toyota Production system (TPS) aimed at cost reduction by thoroughly
eliminating waste.
TPS maintained two principles for facilitating the critical process:
The principle of Just-In-Time (JIT) production.
The principle of jidoka.
They followed Kaizen (continuous improvement) in pursuing production system’s
goals continuously
In Georgetown, assembly operation were performed along 353 stations consisting
of several connected line segments.
Every station on the assembly line embodied jidoka & kaizen tools.
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6. Case summary
• A standardized work chart was posted to Show -
• The cycle time of each work station
• The sequence of work tasks
• The timing to perform them within one cycle
• The mission of the production control (PC) department to feed
necessary parts into TMM operation just-in-time.
• The planning process of PC reflected JIT in two ways:
• The practice of hejinuka (balancing the total order).
• The use of kanban card (related with part production).
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7. Case summary
• TMM’s quality control (QC) department pursued a mandatory routine of
tough quality standard.
• QC served two major functions :
• Providing instant feedback to direct operations.
• Preventing problems from occurring in the first place.
• TMM’s purchasing departments concentrated on managing cost over the
long haul.
• In the Georgetown’s plant TMM found some severe problems which they
wanted to work out:
• Less productivity.
• Low line utilization rate than projected target.
• The seat problem.
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8. Identified problem
Toyota Motor Manufacturing (TMM)
face problem for defected seats in
Camry’s at their Georgetown plant
Kenturcky Framed Seat (KFS) was
TMM’s only one seat supplier
KFS had problem in their seat
manufacturing with missing parts
Seat problem increased with the
increase demands by introducing
various car models
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9. Consequences of the problem
• Defective product with defective seats
• Production plan failed to meet target
• Run ratio dropped 95% to 85% (45 less cars in per shift)
• Offline production increased
• Production cost increased
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10. Causes of the problem
• TMM did not followed TPS philosophy but only matched their tools
• KFS seats matched the TMM capacity but did not implemented TPS
philosophy in production
• TMM identified problems and tagged them in storage for rework
• TMM did not provide real time solution rather increased work load
for rework
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11. Solutions of the problem
• TMM need to participate the KFS QC department
• Placing own personnel
• Providing production guideline
• Defective items need to resolve at real time in assembly line
• Review the seat designs for new models
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12. Alternative Recommendations
• Close relation should be maintained between KFS, TMM and
TMC
• TMM should be inspected all seats properly in KSP before
they are shipped
It will encourage them --------
To improve quality
To remove problematic seats before they are shipped
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13. Alternative Recommendations
• TMM should share quality review report with KSF
It will make the firm able to analyze areas with fundamental
defect problems
• TPS integration will benefit the Toyota supplier network
• TMM should recommend a reduction in the variety of seats
with TMC
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