Background

Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, as well as the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines measured by volume, producing more than 14 million internal combustion engines each year.[5] Honda surpassed Nissan in 2001 to become the second-largest Japanese automobile manufacturer. As of August 2008[update], Honda surpassed Chrysler as the fourth largest automobile manufacturer in the United States.[8] Honda is the sixth largest automobile manufacturer in the world. The first production automobile from Honda was the T360 mini pick-up truck, which went on sale in August 1963 Powered by a small 356 cc straight-4 gasoline engine, it was classified under the cheaper Kei car tax bracket] The first production car from Honda was the S500 sports car, which followed the T360 into production in October 1963. Its chain driven rear wheels point to Honda's motorcycle origins.
Honda Motor Company, Ltd. Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki-geisha

Type

Public company (TYO: 7267) & (NYSE: HMC)

Industry Founded Founder(s) Headquarters

Automotive Aviation

24 September 1948

Soichiro Honda Takeo Fujisawa

Minato, Tokyo, Japan

Products

Automobiles, Motorcycles, Scooters, ATVs, Electrical Generators, Water pumps, Lawn and Garden Equipments, Tillers, Outboard motors, Robotics, Jets, JetEngines, Thin-film solar cells -Industry: Automotive & Aviation -The first production automobile from Honda was the T360 mini pick-up truck, which went on sale in August 1963. Subsidiaries Acura Honda Aircraft Company Total Turnover: 2.9k Cr. * Honda's global lineup consists of the Fit, Civic, Accord, Insight, CR-V, and Odyssey * Honda produces Civic hybrid, a hybrid electric vehicle that competes with the Toyota Prius, and also produces the Insight and CR-Z.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE
Understanding total quality management (TQM).

** Identify costs of quality. ** The evolution of TQM. ** Identify key leaders in the field of quality and their contributions. ** Tools for identifying and solving quality problems. ** Describing quality awards and quality certifications.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
(TQM) is an integrated organizational effort designed to improve quality at every level. The definition of quality depends on the role of the people defining it. Most Consumers have a difficult time defining quality, but they know it when they see it. TQM teams have saved companies money. A good example of "effective" TQM is Japan's Honda Motors. The Japanese automaker had a team of its engineers work for one year with Cleveland-based Parker Hannifin Corp., one of Honda's chief suppliers.(This $2.4 billion manufacturer provides hydraulic valves and hoses, as well as seals, filters, and pumps, for just about every industrial application, including Honda's cars.) Honda's engineers worked in six Parker plants, coming up with efficiencies worth about $1.6 million a year. A lot of their suggestions for change were pretty basic. The main change was reorganizing the production line to reduce the number of times each part is handled and the amount of work-in-progress. The new layout cut the time it took a cylinder to travel through the line from 19 days to just under 5 minutes! Honda also trained nearly 70 Parker employees so that they can go into the company's other 153 plants and reorganize them without Honda's help.