Toyota´s Operations Management on Recalled Product

Toyota’s Operations Management:

Toyota is a company that is renowned for building its reputation on quality as compared to any other auto manufacturer across the globe. Actually, the firm became the largest carmaker across the globe in 2008 when it successfully surpassed General Motors in production and sales. However, since the end of 2009, Toyota has experienced tremendous operations management issues with regards to the quality of its cars. These quality issues have had significant impacts on the identity of the company since it was forced to recall millions of vehicles because of likelihood of these vehicles to suddenly accelerate and endanger the lives of drivers and passengers. The huge product recall has posed considerable threats to Toyota’s operations, political, marketing, ethical, strategic and legal aspects at a time when the entire automotive industry is struggling. In essence, this operation management issue has threatened Toyota’s reputation and necessitates the need for a quick and effective solution through the application of operations management concepts and techniques.

Description of the Problem:

Toyota’s quality problems were highlighted in August 2009 following the high publicity of a fatal crash of a Lexus ES 350 in the United States (Feng, 2010). The crash was attributed to the fact that the gas pedal was stuck and the vehicle was out of control. This incident was followed by subsequent events where the firm’s vehicles have largely been exposed to various issues attributed to the unintended acceleration problems. Since the acceleration problems triggered the company’s escalating crisis, Toyota was forced to do huge recalls of nearly 9 million vehicles worldwide within a 6-month period. Consequent...

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...ng in order to maintain its position in the market. This strategy would involve contacting owners individually and getting them dealerships for repairs and even offer some form of compensation. The need for such strategy would enable the company to regain its reputation while addressing its manufacturing and marketing challenges.

In conclusion, Toyota’s recent acceleration problem and quality issue is an example of an operation-related problem associated with service management. Given the impact of the problem on Toyota’s productivity, there is need for urgent measures to help address the business problem. However, the development of such measures requires analysis of the business problem based on concepts and techniques in operations management. This is because of the role operations management plays in enhancing the development of quality goods and services.