A term paper on

Change and knowledge management at Toyota

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Submitted by:
Shilpashri H V 1PB11MBA19

Submitted to:
Prof.Baisakhi Mitra

DEPARTMENT OF MBA PES INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

BANGALORE-85
(2011-2013 Batch)
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Introduction to Toyota

The company was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937 as a spinoff from his father's company Toyota Industries to create automobiles. Three years earlier, in 1934, while still a department of Toyota Industries, it created its first product, the Type A engine, and, in 1936, its first passenger car, Toyota. Toyota Motor Corporation is headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi and in Tokyo. In addition to manufacturing automobiles, Toyota provides financial services through its Toyota Financial Services division and also builds robots. Toyota Kirloskar Motor Private Limited is joint venture between Toyota Motor Corporation and the Kirloskar Group, for the manufacture and sales of Toyota cars in India. It currently is the 5th largest car maker in India after Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Tata and Mahindra. Toyota will lead the way to the future of mobility, enriching lives around the world with the safest and most responsible ways of moving people. Through their commitment to quality, constant innovation and respect for the planet, they aim to exceed expectations and be rewarded with a smile. They will meet the challenging goals by engaging the talent and passion of people, who believe there is always a better way. Their aim is for customers to interpret Toyota Value as Toyota always provides value optimized for me, which means multiple elements, simultaneously working in harmony, at the highest level of performance.

Module 1: Introduction to Change

Personal change
What is Change? As it is always said that nothing is constant rather than change, we can say that change is a continuous process. Change in life is inevitable. One who accepts them and changes with them is the one who succeeds in life. There are instances in life when everything gets blocked and one finds himself helpless. At that situation, one who accepts it and tries to fight-out new ways to overcome the situation emerges in flying colors. In this term paper, we will discuss various changes that NxtGen is undergoing and the changes that I have observed in me personally after undertaking this internship. Need for Change With change in environment, persons need to change in order to survive. Its very difficult for people to adapt to the changing environment without changing themselves. To make operations of organizations more effective. With any change in organization, individual employees also need to undergo change because without support of employees, any change in organization cannot be implemented. Change is also required to eliminate all the deficiencies in the existing organization. A change is always refreshing and encourages employees to move forward in their lives. Personal change is defined as : a means of improvement in an individuals life. However, personal change might need some help in finding out HOW to change. The aim of Personal Change involves tapping the unlimited potential available in the individual.

Personal change process

Step:1 Discovering. Step:2 Clearing. Step:3 Programming. Step:4 Processing. 1. Discovery:: pre requisite willingness to learn.

Once I got into the company I was thrilled to know that there were so many people from whom I could learn many things. All of them were experts in their own jobs and were very much willing to share their knowledge with me. 2. Clearing : This is the stage where I realized the many misconceptions I had about the

working of the company and the staff as to they only do rigorous work and nothing else.All such misconceptions were cleared once I entered into the company. 3. Programming: The process of establishing useful ways of HOW to do things.

Initially I was very apprehensive about how to start up with things as I had no clue about it.But by the end of the internship I was well trained about how to do and present things in a different and simple way which could be easily understood by anyone. 4. Processing : The ongoing activity of working on areas where change is desired.

There were certain times during thbe preparation of my questionnaire where a lot of changes were to be made and so the changes were made to continue with the process.

John Fisher :: The Transition Curve

Anxiety: Initially I was very anxious to go to a new place and meet new people and work in a completely new and different environment.It was completely out of my control of their behavior with me. Happiness: Once I understood the surrounding and the peoples behavior I was happy that they were very understanding and ready to help me when I need it. Fear: Suddenly when I started my work I realized it is not an easy job where everything is easily understood by me. I feared there could be a lot of unknowns and a lot of efforts should be put to make them known. Threat : I could feel that others are doing their job quite easily without much efforts as they were all experienced and I was lagging behind. Guilt : I was guilty that I am not doing my job well enough that was expected by me to do.
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Depression : I was very depressed and thought that I would not be able to do my job as expected.

Disillusionment : I thought that my values, beliefs, goals are incompatible with those of the organizations. Hostility : I tried to use the same methods which were previously and failed to make them successful. Denial : I did not accept initially that the failure of the processes had affected me . Gradual acceptance : Then I decided to understand that there has to be something I can do to make this right. Moving Forward: I started my own way of executing things and learnt things better towards success.

Personal change that I witnessed in myself in the company: Improved in my presentation skills. Enhanced knowledge about professional environment. Time management. The way of communicating things. Co-ordination with other members. Factors responsible for my change : Very co-operative people around me. Company principles and polies. The ethics and values of the employees.

Module.2: Organisation change

Organizational Change: A concerted, planned effort to increase organizational effectiveness and health through changes in the organizations dynamics using behavioral science knowledge.

Remedial & Developmental Change in Toyota

Technical system centre system introduced Sales operation centre system introduced Environment and IT responses Changes on the group level Post-flattening personal organization reforms Last organizational diagram for the 75th organizational year.

Reasons for the changes made:

For the betterment of the company. Improvement of the sales and service departments. To strengthen the organization structure. To provide for personal development. Forces of organizational change: 1. External Forces: Smaller product life cycle Rapid changing preferences of customers Technological Advancements Market Changes 2. Internal Forces:

Managerial Behavior and Decisions. Improvement of sales and service departments

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Module.3:Organisational culture
Corporate Culture, refers to a system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from other organizations. Organisation culture is defined as the cognitive framework that is shared by member of organisation which contains beliefs and principles that is important Although every organisation has unique sole and standardised culture, there is still the existence of a subculture within an organisation. Hatch & Cunliffe (2006) says that subculture is a subset of the organisation members that form a sub group inside the organisation and act according to their own unique collective understanding. In contrast to subcultures, organisation that has low subcultures exist within their organization will have a dominant culture. Dominant culture is defined as a distinctive personality of an organisation that reflect its core value and belief that is shared within the organisation (Greenberg, 2005). Toyota has a very strong dominant culture with low existence of subcultures withing the organisation. The success of Toyota laid on the culture that they belief and carry out. Toyotas strong culture is the belief of constant improvement of their operation internally so that they will improve continuously over the years. The strong culture of Toyota is called Kaizen which mean continuous improvement in Japanese which is part of Toyotas renowned system called Total Production System (TPS). The strong culture of Toyota leads to a strong reputation of excellence that promotes growth and opportunity (Toyota, 2004). The success of Toyota shows the importance of a strong culture that will lead to success of a company. Therefore, it is compulsory for the employee of the new manufacturing site to share a common strong culture that drives efficiency and productivity to a high level. Greenberg says organisation culture will give uniqueness to employee, employee pledge to organisation objective and make clear what employee behaviour an organisation is expecting. Toyota clearly has achieved good organisation cultures, so therefore Toyota has become the world largest automotive manufacturer in the world. Weak culture in the manufacturing plant will not lead to any success for the site as employee is not united with a common mind set while working in the site. Divided culture among employee can be avoided if strong culture is implemented in the site. To further
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support my argument, weak culture lead to toxic organisation culture which is formed by the experience of people that they are not treasured by organisation. The occurrence of toxic culture will lead to lose of worthy employee. In the case of the manufacturing site, lose of employee mean the loss of valuable talented and skilful worker to operate the manufacturing site. The success of the site will not only lay on the strong culture such as Kaizen system that must be implemented to the site, the monitoring of the development of this strong culture is crucial. For instance, Toyota manufacturing system in the current factory is producing many imperfect car shows that there is something wrong with the system. The adopting of a strong culture of lean manufacturing that uses just-in-time (JIT) lead to inflexibility for manufacturing site to change any operation in the manufacturing process even though there is small error occur in manufacturing process. To avoid repetition of error occurring in the new site, subculture that promote more flexibility in the manufacturing process should exist instead of a strong dominate culture of Toyota. Employees in the manufacturing site should create a subculture among the employee so that they can solve problem instantly by having better understanding and communication among each other.

Module 4:Creativity and innovation

Expertise: Toyota's expertise extends beyond its automobile manufacturing business into a variety of other fields, including housing, financial services, communications, marine and biotechnology and afforestation. Creative thinking skills: 1. Always keep the final target in mind. 2. Clearly assign tasks to yourself and others. 3. Think and speak on verified, proven information and data. 4. Take full advantage of the wisdom and experiences of others to send, gather or discuss information. 5. Share information with others in a timely fashion. 6. Always report, inform and consult in a timely manner. 7. Analyze and understand shortcomings in your capabilities in a measurable way. 8. Relentlessly strive to conduct Kaizen activities.
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9. Think "outside the box", or beyond common sense and standard rules. 10. Always be mindful of protecting your safety and health. Motivation Toyota sees motivation as the certain route to quality: A Japanese firm is aiming to employ 3,000 staff producing 200,000 cars a year .

Organizational climate: The five values Toyota is constantly working to harmonize: 1. Quality Experience:

Our never-ending quest for Quality improvements, components, people. 2. Beyond Expectation:

Wide product range, cost, service levels, work to create a positive customer experience 3. Joy of Owning:

Raising the style stakes 4. The Next Standard:

Latest Toyota technology and engineering excellence showcased by Toyotas Formula 1 team. Dealerships to be equipped with the Intelligent Tester . 5. True to Society:

Building a safe and clean environment. Being a good corporate citizen. Uplifting and empowering local communities. Includes training and development programs. Style of leadership: The team takes up new roles and responsibilities as they expand their operations in India. Their objective is to strengthen the organization towards achieving TKMs vision and further enhance speed of decision making.
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Module 4:Knowledge management

Knowledge Management Drivers:
Knowledge based Drivers: Toyotas knowledge-sharing network: Toyotas network has solved three fundamental dilemmas with regard to knowledge sharing by devising methods to (1) motivate members to participate and openly share valuable knowledge (while preventing undesirable spillovers to competitors), (2) prevent free riders, and (3) reduce the costs associated with finding and accessing different types of valuable knowledge. Technology Drivers They believe in combining the judgment of humans with the precision of machines and that takes time. Intra-Organizational Drivers (1) To understand what constitutes an effective organizational network when much of the work of the organization is done by teams; and (2) To examine what the internal and external social capital needs of teams are. Human Resource Drivers: Toyota is working to develop human resources by implementing an educational program based on OJT (on-the-job-training), which is crucial for the development and generational transfer of excellent monozukuri (manufacturing), with the five Toyota Way keywords as a fundamental basis. Process Drivers Every organization strives to make its business processes more effective, more efficient and more capable of adapting to an ever-changing environment. Toyotas
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cultureits basic DNAis built around continuously searching for better ways to improve its manufacturing and business processes, and ultimately achieve customer satisfaction. Economic Drivers Economic forces have a significant influence on how Toyota market its products, as they determine consumers activities and buying decisions. Economic forces include the general economic conditions (the current state of the economy) and consumers buying power and willingness to spend. These are affected by many factors such as the cost of living, interest rates and inflation.

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