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Toyota’s Organizational Culture: An Analysis

Toyota Motor Corporation’s organizational culture defines the responses of employees to challenges that the company faces in the market. As a global leader in the automobile market, Toyota uses its work culture to maximize human resource capabilities in innovation. The company benefits from its organizational culture in terms of motivating workers to adopt effective problem-solving behaviors. The characteristics of the organizational culture indicate a careful approach in facilitating organizational learning in the automotive business. As Toyota’s organizational structure (company structure) evolves, so does its business culture. The automaker’s company culture highlights the importance of developing an appropriate workplace culture to support global business success.

Toyota’s culture effectively supports endeavors in innovation and continuous improvement. An understanding of this business culture is beneficial to identifying beliefs and principles that contribute to the strength of the company and its brands against competitors, like Tesla , Ford , Nissan, BMW , and General Motors . Despite the tough rivalry noted in the Five Forces analysis of Toyota , the company maintains competitive human resources with the help of its organizational culture.

Features of Toyota’s Organizational Culture

Toyota’s organizational culture adapts to international business needs, such as legal requirements and emerging concerns in the market. In the past, the automaker’s business culture emphasized a sense of hierarchy and secrecy, which translated to employees’ perception that all decisions must come from the headquarters in Japan. Today, the characteristics of Toyota’s organizational culture are as follows, arranged according to significance:

• Continuous improvement through learning

Teamwork . Toyota uses teams in most of its business areas. One of the company’s principles is that the constructive collaboration of teamwork leads to greater capabilities and success in the automotive industry. This part of the work culture emphasizes the involvement of employees in their respective teams. To ensure that teamwork is properly integrated in the organizational culture, every Toyota employee goes through a teambuilding training program. Through this emphasis on teamwork, the company culture aligns with job design and human resource development in Toyota’s operations management .

Continuous Improvement through Learning . Toyota’s organizational culture facilitates the development of the firm as a learning organization. A learning organization utilizes information gained through the activities of individual workers to develop policies and programs for better results. The company’s business culture highlights learning as a way of developing solutions to problems, such as problems in vehicle manufacturing, people’s mobility, and the transportation sector. In this way, improvements in business processes and outputs fulfill Toyota’s vision statement and mission statement with the support of this organizational culture.

Quality . Quality is at the heart of Toyota’s organizational culture. The success of the company is typically attributed to its ability to provide high-quality automobiles. To effectively integrate quality in its work culture, the firm uses the principles of The Toyota Way, which emphasizes quality in solving problems. These principles define the business management approaches used in the automotive company. This quality factor in the business culture translates to quality in human resource management, worker behaviors, and organizational outputs, such as cars. Thus, the competitive advantages noted in the SWOT analysis of Toyota are partly dependent on this quality-focused characteristic of the corporate culture.

Secrecy . Toyota’s organizational culture has a considerable degree of secrecy. However, the level of secrecy has declined through the years, especially after the automaker’s reorganization in 2013. In the old company culture, information about problems encountered in the workplace must go through the firm’s headquarters in Japan. Today, the company’s organizational culture does not emphasize secrecy as much. For example, many of the problems encountered in manufacturing plants in the U.S. are now disseminated, analyzed, and solved within the North America business unit of Toyota.

Key Points on Toyota’s Culture

The characteristics of Toyota’s organizational culture enable the business to continue growing. The company’s innovation capabilities are based on continuous improvement through learning. Quality improvement and problem-solving effectiveness in the automotive business are achieved through the activities of work teams and individual employees. These cultural traits ensure human resource support for strategies addressing external factors linked to the opportunities and threats described in the PESTLE/PESTEL analysis of Toyota . However, secrecy in Toyota’s business culture presents drawbacks because it reduces organizational flexibility in rapid problem-solving endeavors.

• Kaila, H. L. (2023). Linking safety culture to company values and legacy. Journal of Psychosocial Research, 18 (1).
• Toyota Code of Conduct .
• Toyota Motor Corporation – Form 20-F .
• Toyota Motor Corporation – Philosophy .
• U.S. Department of Commerce – International Trade Administration – Automotive Industry .
• Zhang, W., Zeng, X., Liang, H., Xue, Y., & Cao, X. (2023). Understanding how organizational culture affects innovation performance: A management context perspective. Sustainability, 15 (8), 6644.
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• This article may not be reproduced, distributed, or mirrored without written permission from Panmore Institute and its author/s.
• Educators, Researchers, and Students: You are permitted to quote or paraphrase parts of this article (not the entire article) for educational or research purposes, as long as the article is properly cited and referenced together with its URL/link.

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What Really Makes Toyota’s Production System Resilient

• Willy C. Shih

“Just-in-time” only works as part of a comprehensive suite of strategies.

Toyota has fared better than many of its competitors in riding out the supply chain disruptions of recent years. But focusing on how Toyota had stockpiled semiconductors and the problems of other manufacturers, some observers jumped to the conclusion that the era of the vaunted Toyota Production System was over. Not the case, say Toyota executives. TPS is alive and well and is a key reason Toyota has outperformed rivals.

The supply chain disruptions triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic caused major headaches for manufacturers around the world. Nowhere was this felt more acutely than in the auto industry, which faced severe shortages of semiconductor chips and other components. This led many people to argue that just-in-time and lean production methods were dead and being superseded by “just-in-case” stocking of more inventory.

• Willy C. Shih is a Baker Foundation Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School.

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A CASE STUDY "TOYOTA'S TEAM CULTURE"

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THE ESSENCE OF JUST-IN-TIME: PRACTICE-IN-USE AT TOYOTA PRODUCTION SYSTEM MANAGED ORGANIZATIONS - How Toyota Turns Workers Into Problem Solvers

by Sarah Jane Johnston, HBS Working Knowledge

When HBS professor Steven Spear recently released an abstract on problem solving at Toyota, HBS Working Knowledge staffer Sarah Jane Johnston e-mailed off some questions. Spear not only answered the questions, but also asked some of his own—and answered those as well.

Sarah Jane Johnston: Why study Toyota? With all the books and articles on Toyota, lean manufacturing, just-in-time, kanban systems, quality systems, etc. that came out in the 1980s and 90s, hasn't the topic been exhausted?

Steven Spear: Well, this has been a much-researched area. When Kent Bowen and I first did a literature search, we found nearly 3,000 articles and books had been published on some of the topics you just mentioned.

However, there was an apparent discrepancy. There had been this wide, long-standing recognition of Toyota as the premier automobile manufacturer in terms of the unmatched combination of high quality, low cost, short lead-time and flexible production. And Toyota's operating system—the Toyota Production System—had been widely credited for Toyota's sustained leadership in manufacturing performance. Furthermore, Toyota had been remarkably open in letting outsiders study its operations. The American Big Three and many other auto companies had done major benchmarking studies, and they and other companies had tried to implement their own forms of the Toyota Production System. There is the Ford Production System, the Chrysler Operating System, and General Motors went so far as to establish a joint venture with Toyota called NUMMI, approximately fifteen years ago.

However, despite Toyota's openness and the genuinely honest efforts by other companies over many years to emulate Toyota, no one had yet matched Toyota in terms of having simultaneously high-quality, low-cost, short lead-time, flexible production over time and broadly based across the system.

It was from observations such as these that Kent and I started to form the impression that despite all the attention that had already been paid to Toyota, something critical was being missed. Therefore, we approached people at Toyota to ask what they did that others might have missed.

What did they say?

To paraphrase one of our contacts, he said, "It's not that we don't want to tell you what TPS is, it's that we can't. We don't have adequate words for it. But, we can show you what TPS is."

Over about a four-year period, they showed us how work was actually done in practice in dozens of plants. Kent and I went to Toyota plants and those of suppliers here in the U.S. and in Japan and directly watched literally hundreds of people in a wide variety of roles, functional specialties, and hierarchical levels. I personally was in the field for at least 180 working days during that time and even spent one week at a non-Toyota plant doing assembly work and spent another five months as part of a Toyota team that was trying to teach TPS at a first-tier supplier in Kentucky.

What did you discover?

We concluded that Toyota has come up with a powerful, broadly applicable answer to a fundamental managerial problem. The products we consume and the services we use are typically not the result of a single person's effort. Rather, they come to us through the collective effort of many people each doing a small part of the larger whole. To a certain extent, this is because of the advantages of specialization that Adam Smith identified in pin manufacturing as long ago as 1776 in The Wealth of Nations . However, it goes beyond the economies of scale that accrue to the specialist, such as skill and equipment focus, setup minimization, etc.

The products and services characteristic of our modern economy are far too complex for any one person to understand how they work. It is cognitively overwhelming. Therefore, organizations must have some mechanism for decomposing the whole system into sub-system and component parts, each "cognitively" small or simple enough for individual people to do meaningful work. However, decomposing the complex whole into simpler parts is only part of the challenge. The decomposition must occur in concert with complimentary mechanisms that reintegrate the parts into a meaningful, harmonious whole.

This common yet nevertheless challenging problem is obviously evident when we talk about the design of complex technical devices. Automobiles have tens of thousands of mechanical and electronic parts. Software has millions and millions of lines of code. Each system can require scores if not hundreds of person-work-years to be designed. No one person can be responsible for the design of a whole system. No one is either smart enough or long-lived enough to do the design work single handedly.

Furthermore, we observe that technical systems are tested repeatedly in prototype forms before being released. Why? Because designers know that no matter how good their initial efforts, they will miss the mark on the first try. There will be something about the design of the overall system structure or architecture, the interfaces that connect components, or the individual components themselves that need redesign. In other words, to some extent the first try will be wrong, and the organization designing a complex system needs to design, test, and improve the system in a way that allows iterative congruence to an acceptable outcome.

The same set of conditions that affect groups of people engaged in collaborative product design affect groups of people engaged in the collaborative production and delivery of goods and services. As with complex technical systems, there would be cognitive overload for one person to design, test-in-use, and improve the work systems of factories, hotels, hospitals, or agencies as reflected in (a) the structure of who gets what good, service, or information from whom, (b) the coordinative connections among people so that they can express reliably what they need to do their work and learn what others need from them, and (c) the individual work activities that create intermediate products, services, and information. In essence then, the people who work in an organization that produces something are simultaneously engaged in collaborative production and delivery and are also engaged in a collaborative process of self-reflective design, "prototype testing," and improvement of their own work systems amidst changes in market needs, products, technical processes, and so forth.

It is our conclusion that Toyota has developed a set of principles, Rules-in-Use we've called them, that allow organizations to engage in this (self-reflective) design, testing, and improvement so that (nearly) everyone can contribute at or near his or her potential, and when the parts come together the whole is much, much greater than the sum of the parts.

What are these rules?

We've seen that consistently—across functional roles, products, processes (assembly, equipment maintenance and repair, materials logistics, training, system redesign, administration, etc.), and hierarchical levels (from shop floor to plant manager and above) that in TPS managed organizations the design of nearly all work activities, connections among people, and pathways of connected activities over which products, services, and information take form are specified-in-their-design, tested-with-their-every-use, and improved close in time, place, and person to the occurrence of every problem.

That sounds pretty rigorous.

It is, but consider what the Toyota people are attempting to accomplish. They are saying before you (or you all) do work, make clear what you expect to happen (by specifying the design), each time you do work, see that what you expected has actually occurred (by testing with each use), and when there is a difference between what had actually happened and what was predicted, solve problems while the information is still fresh.

That reminds me of what my high school lab science teacher required.

Exactly! This is a system designed for broad based, frequent, rapid, low-cost learning. The "Rules" imply a belief that we may not get the right solution (to work system design) on the first try, but that if we design everything we do as a bona fide experiment, we can more rapidly converge, iteratively, and at lower cost, on the right answer, and, in the process, learn a heck of lot more about the system we are operating.

You say in your article that the Toyota system involves a rigorous and methodical problem-solving approach that is made part of everyone's work and is done under the guidance of a teacher. How difficult would it be for companies to develop their own program based on the Toyota model?

Your question cuts right to a critical issue. We discussed earlier the basic problem that for complex systems, responsibility for design, testing, and improvement must be distributed broadly. We've observed that Toyota, its best suppliers, and other companies that have learned well from Toyota can confidently distribute a tremendous amount of responsibility to the people who actually do the work, from the most senior, expeirenced member of the organization to the most junior. This is accomplished because of the tremendous emphasis on teaching everyone how to be a skillful problem solver.

How do they do this?

They do this by teaching people to solve problems by solving problems. For instance, in our paper we describe a team at a Toyota supplier, Aisin. The team members, when they were first hired, were inexperienced with at best an average high school education. In the first phase of their employment, the hurdle was merely learning how to do the routine work for which they were responsible. Soon thereafter though, they learned how to immediately identify problems that occurred as they did their work. Then they learned how to do sophisticated root-cause analysis to find the underlying conditions that created the symptoms that they had experienced. Then they regularly practiced developing counter-measures—changes in work, tool, product, or process design—that would remove the underlying root causes.

Sounds impressive.

Yes, but frustrating. They complained that when they started, they were "blissful in their ignorance." But after this sustained development, they could now see problems, root down to their probable cause, design solutions, but the team members couldn't actually implement these solutions. Therefore, as a final round, the team members received training in various technical crafts—one became a licensed electrician, another a machinist, another learned some carpentry skills.

Was this unique?

Absolutely not. We saw the similar approach repeated elsewhere. At Taiheiyo, another supplier, team members made sophisticated improvements in robotic welding equipment that reduced cost, increased quality, and won recognition with an award from the Ministry of Environment. At NHK (Nippon Spring) another team conducted a series of experiments that increased quality, productivity, and efficiency in a seat production line.

What is the role of the manager in this process?

Your question about the role of the manager gets right to the heart of the difficulty of managing this way. For many people, it requires a profound shift in mind-set in terms of how the manager envisions his or her role. For the team at Aisin to become so skilled as problem solvers, they had to be led through their training by a capable team leader and group leader. The team leader and group leader were capable of teaching these skills in a directed, learn-by-doing fashion, because they too were consistently trained in a similar fashion by their immediate senior. We found that in the best TPS-managed plants, there was a pathway of learning and teaching that cascaded from the most senior levels to the most junior. In effect, the needs of people directly touching the work determined the assistance, problem solving, and training activities of those more senior. This is a sharp contrast, in fact a near inversion, in terms of who works for whom when compared with the more traditional, centralized command and control system characterized by a downward diffusion of work orders and an upward reporting of work status.

And if you are hiring a manager to help run this system, what are the attributes of the ideal candidate?

We observed that the best managers in these TPS managed organizations, and the managers in organizations that seem to adopt the Rules-in-Use approach most rapidly are humble but also self-confident enough to be great learners and terrific teachers. Furthermore, they are willing to subscribe to a consistent set of values.

How do you mean?

Again, it is what is implied in the guideline of specifying every design, testing with every use, and improving close in time, place, and person to the occurrence of every problem. If we do this consistently, we are saying through our action that when people come to work, they are entitled to expect that they will succeed in doing something of value for another person. If they don't succeed, they are entitled to know immediately that they have not. And when they have not succeeded, they have the right to expect that they will be involved in creating a solution that makes success more likely on the next try. People who cannot subscribe to these ideas—neither in their words nor in their actions—are not likely to manage effectively in this system.

That sounds somewhat high-minded and esoteric.

I agree with you that it strikes the ear as sounding high principled but perhaps not practical. However, I'm fundamentally an empiricist, so I have to go back to what we have observed. In organizations in which managers really live by these Rules, either in the Toyota system or at sites that have successfully transformed themselves, there is a palpable, positive difference in the attitude of people that is coupled with exceptional performance along critical business measures such as quality, cost, safety, and cycle time.

Have any other research projects evolved from your findings?

We titled the results of our initial research "Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System." Kent and I are reasonably confident that the Rules-in-Use about which we have written are a successful decoding. Now, we are trying to "replicate the DNA" at a variety of sites. We want to know where and when these Rules create great value, and where they do, how they can be implemented most effectively.

Since we are empiricists, we are conducting experiments through our field research. We are part of a fairly ambitious effort at Alcoa to develop and deploy the Alcoa Business System, ABS. This is a fusion of Alcoa's long standing value system, which has helped make Alcoa the safest employer in the country, with the Rules in Use. That effort has been going on for a number of years, first with the enthusiastic support of Alcoa's former CEO, Paul O'Neill, now Secretary of the Treasury (not your typical retirement, eh?) and now with the backing of Alain Belda, the company's current head. There have been some really inspirational early results in places as disparate as Hernando, Mississippi and Poces de Caldas, Brazil and with processes as disparate as smelting, extrusion, die design, and finance.

We also started creating pilot sites in the health care industry. We started our work with a "learning unit" at Deaconess-Glover Hospital in Needham, not far from campus. We've got a series of case studies that captures some of the learnings from that effort. More recently, we've established pilot sites at Presbyterian and South Side Hospitals, both part of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. This work is part of a larger, comprehensive effort being made under the auspices of the Pittsburgh Regional Healthcare Initiative, with broad community support, with cooperation from the Centers for Disease Control, and with backing from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Also, we've been testing these ideas with our students: Kent in the first year Technology and Operations Management class for which he is course head, me in a second year elective called Running and Growing the Small Company, and both of us in an Executive Education course in which we participate called Building Competitive Advantage Through Operations.

· · · ·

Steven Spear is an Assistant Professor in the Technology and Operations Management Unit at the Harvard Business School.

Other HBS Working Knowledge stories featuring Steven J. Spear: Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System Why Your Organization Isn't Learning All It Should

Developing Skillful Problem Solvers: Introduction

Within TPS-managed organizations, people are trained to improve the work that they perform, they learn to do this with the guidance of a capable supplier of assistance and training, and training occurs by solving production and delivery-related problems as bona fide, hypothesis-testing experiments. Examples of this approach follow.

• A quality improvement team at a Toyota supplier, Taiheiyo, conducted a series of experiments to eliminate the spatter and fumes emitted by robotic welders. The quality circle members, all line workers, conducted a series of complex experiments that resulted in a cleaner, safer work environment, equipment that operated with less cost and higher reliability, and relief for more technically-skilled maintenance and engineering specialists from basic equipment maintenance and repair.
• A work team at NHK (Nippon Spring) Toyota, were taught to conduct a series of experiments over many months to improve the process by which arm rest inserts were "cold molded." The team reduced the cost, shortened the cycle time, and improved the quality while simultaneously developing the capability to take a similar experimental approach to process improvement in the future.
• At Aisin, a team of production line workers progressed from having the skills to do only routine production work to having the skills to identify problems, investigate root causes, develop counter-measures, and reconfigure equipment as skilled electricians and machinists. This transformation occurred primarily through the mechanism of problem solving-based training.
• Another example from Aisin illustrates how improvement efforts—in this case of the entire production system by senior managers—were conducted as a bona fide hypothesis-refuting experiment.
• The Acme and Ohba examples contrast the behavior of managers deeply acculturated in Toyota with that of their less experienced colleagues. The Acme example shows the relative emphasis one TPS acculturated manager placed on problem solving as a training opportunity in comparison to his colleagues who used the problem-solving opportunity as a chance to first make process improvements. An additional example from a Toyota supplier reinforces the notion of using problem solving as a vehicle to teach.
• The data section concludes with an example given by a former employee of two companies, both of which have been recognized for their efforts to be a "lean manufacturer" but neither of which has been trained in Toyota's own methods. The approach evident at Toyota and its suppliers was not evident in this person's narrative.

Defining conditions as problematic

We concluded that within Toyota Production System-managed organizations three sets of conditions are considered problematic and prompt problem-solving efforts. These are summarized here and are discussed more fully in a separate paper titled "Pursuing the IDEAL: Conditions that Prompt Problem Solving in Toyota Production System-Managed Organizations."

Failure to meet a customer need

It was typically recognized as a problem if someone was unable to provide the good, service, or information needed by an immediate or external customer.

Failure to do work as designed

Even if someone was able to meet the need of his or her customers without fail (agreed upon mix, volume, and timing of goods and services), it was typically recognized as a problem if a person was unable to do his or her own individual work or convey requests (i.e., "Please send me this good or service that I need to do my work.") and responses (i.e., "Here is the good or service that you requested, in the quantity you requested.").

Failure to do work in an IDEAL fashion

Even if someone could meet customer needs and do his or her work as designed, it was typically recognized as a problem if that person's work was not IDEAL. IDEAL production and delivery is that which is defect-free, done on demand, in batches of one, immediate, without waste, and in an environment that is physically, emotionally, and professionally safe. The improvement activities detailed in the cases that follow, the reader will see, were motivated not so much by a failure to meet customer needs or do work as designed. Rather, they were motivated by costs that were too high (i.e., Taiheiyo robotic welding operation), batch sizes that were too great (i.e., the TSSC improvement activity evaluated by Mr. Ohba), lead-times that were too long, processes that were defect-causing (i.e., NHK cold-forming process), and by compromises to safety (i.e., Taiheiyo).

Our field research suggests that Toyota and those of its suppliers that are especially adroit at the Toyota Production System make a deliberate effort to develop the problem-solving skills of workers—even those engaged in the most routine production and delivery. We saw evidence of this in the Taiheiyo, NHK, and Aisin quality circle examples.

Forums are created in which problem solving can be learned in a learn-by-doing fashion. This point was evident in the quality circle examples. It was also evident to us in the role played by Aisin's Operations Management Consulting Division (OMCD), Toyota's OMCD unit in Japan, and Toyota's Toyota Supplier Support Center (TSSC) in North America. All of these organizations support the improvement efforts of the companies' factories and those of the companies' suppliers. In doing so, these organizations give operating managers opportunities to hone their problem-solving and teaching skills, relieved temporarily of day to day responsibility for managing, production and delivery of goods and services to external customers.

Learning occurs with the guidance of a capable teacher. This was evident in that each of the quality circles had a specific group leader who acted as coach for the quality circle's team leader. We also saw how Mr. Seto at NHK defined his role as, in part, as developing the problem-solving and teaching skills of the team leader whom he supervised.

Problem solving occurs as bona fide experiments. We saw this evident in the experience of the quality circles who learned to organize their efforts as bona fide experiments rather than as ad hoc attempts to find a feasible, sufficient solution. The documentation prepared by the senior team at Aisin is organized precisely to capture improvement ideas as refutable hypotheses.

Broadly dispersed scientific problem solving as a dynamic capability

Problem solving, as illustrated in this paper, is a classic example of a dynamic capability highlighted in the "resource-based" view of the firm literature.

Scientific problem solving—as a broadly dispersed skill—is time consuming to develop and difficult to imitate. Emulation would require a similar investment in time, and, more importantly, in managerial resources available to teach, coach, assist, and direct. For organizations currently operating with a more traditional command and control approach, allocating such managerial resources would require more than a reallocation of time across a differing set of priorities. It would also require an adjustment of values and the processes through which those processes are expressed. Christensen would argue that existing organizations are particularly handicapped in making such adjustments.

Excerpted with permission from "Developing Skillful Problem Solvers in Toyota Production System-Managed Organizations: Learning to Problem Solve by Solving Problems," HBS Working Paper , 2001.

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Organizational Identity, Corporate Strategy, and Habits of Attention: A Case Study of Toyota

Submitted: 20 April 2018 Reviewed: 24 August 2018 Published: 31 December 2018

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.81117

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This chapter links organizational identity as a cohesive attribute to corporate strategy and a competitive advantage, using Toyota as a case study. The evolution of Toyota from a domestic producer, and exporter, and now a global firm using a novel form of lean production follows innovative tools of human resources, supply chain collaboration, a network identity to link domestic operations to overseas investments, and unparalleled commercial investments in technologies that make the firm moving from a sustainable competitive position to one of unassailable advantage in the global auto sector. The chapter traces the strategic moves to strength Toyota’s identity at all levels, including in its overseas operations, to build a global ecosystem model of collaboration.

• institutional identity
• lean management
• learning symmetries
• habits of attention

Author Information

Charles mcmillan *.

• Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, Canada

*Address all correspondence to: [email protected]

(Article for Lawrence Emeagwali (Ed.), Strategic Management . London, 2018)

October 18, 2018.

“There is no use trying” said Alice, “we cannot believe impossible things.”—Lewis Carroll

1. Introduction

Few organizations combine the institutional benefits of longevity and tradition with the disruptive startup advantages of novelty and suspension of path dependent behavior. This chapter provides a case study of Toyota Corporation, an organization with an explicit philosophy that embodies “…standardized work and kaizen (that) are two sides of the same coin. Standardized work provides a consistent basis for maintaining productivity, quality and safety at high levels. Kaizen furnishes the dynamics of continuing improvement and the very human motivation of encouraging individuals to take part in designing and managing their own jobs” ([ 1 ], p. 38). Toyota’s philosophy, combining a model that is “stable and paranoid, systematic experimental, formal and frank” [ 2 ], often called the Toyota Way, evolved from the founding of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, founded in 1911, setting up an auto division in 1933, and Toyota Motor Company in 1937 [ 3 ].

What is unique about Toyota and its pioneering lean production, described colloquially as just-in-time (JIT), embraces a deliberative philosophy that establishes a corporate identity for safety, quality, and aspirational performance goals. Going forward, with plants and distribution centers around the world, Toyota cultivates a direct involvement of employees, suppliers, and other organizations, called the Toyota Group, as a network identity that extends boundary members of the firm’s eco-system that also embodies detailed performance measures to strengthen and reinforce identity enhancement. These identity attributes creating novel and seemingly contradictory configurations, both at home and now in global markets. Toyota provides a framework to link identity as a cohesive attribute for problem-solving with explicit, data-driven benchmarks, a DNA that encompasses observation, analysis, hypothesis testing from the shop floor to the executive suite [ 3 , 4 ].

The concept of identity has a long pedigree in the social sciences, dating from classical writers like Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim, focusing on individual identities separate and distinct from larger social systems arising from the division of labor. However, identity in organizations is a relatively new construct, based on claims that are “central, distinctive, and enduring” [ 5 ]. Despite the growing literature on organizational identity [ 6 , 7 ], there is less consensus given the multiple disciplinary focus, the levels of analysis, well as minimum empirical work linking organizational identity to corporate strategy. In some cases, identity linkages touch on outcomes like brand equity, reputation, visual media like social networking and the gap between defining what the organization is today and what it wants to become, despite the high failure rate of firms [ 8 ]. Indeed, there is little reason to doubt that “the concept of organizational identity is suffering an identity crisis” ([ 9 ], p. 206).

Despite the growing literature on organization identity, encompassing diverse constructs and methodologies [ 6 , 7 ], often at different organizational levels (individuals, groups and senior management), has limited empirical study linking individual and group identity both to corporate strategy and corporate performance. Various accounts of social experiences, concentrating on a sense of insider and outsider to frame a mutual identity mindset that shapes organizational identity, apply personal histories and narratives, but leave open the distinction between corporate identity and organizational identity [ 10 ]. Identity producing mechanisms flowing from purposeful actions vary by context, such as universities and faith-based organizations to technology and engineering organizations with complicated role activities grounded in socio-technical design [ 11 ]. Compelling cases of identity as a tool for organizational integration, or the impact of cleavage and conflict owing to human diversity policies, personality characteristics of key actors, and sub-unit identity images advance understanding of behavior within organizations, but often ignores how both strategic choice and external forces impact these internal mindsets. Many scholars associate internal identity issues to external stakeholders using sundry communication tools (e.g., [ 12 ]) but the literature has few studies that explain what organizational identity features are truly different and give a competitive advantage in contested markets over time. To advance hypothesis testing and to encourage conceptual development in both theory and practice, there must be a linkage to identity as a construct that provides insights to an organization’s competitive advantage.

This chapter addresses the issues linking strategic choices and capabilities to Toyota’s identity as a case study. Toyota’s strategic positioning and high-performance outcomes amplify identity tools at three levels, its employees (both in Japan and its factories overseas), its suppliers, and its customers. Depicted as a best practice company [ 13 ], Toyota is seen as a model to emulate in sectors as diverse as hospitals and retailing. This chapter has three objectives: first, by examining Toyota’s transformation as a leading domestic producer to a top global company, the firm’s core identity has changed little despite numerous internal and external changes; second, Toyota as a case study illustrates the capacity to have multiple images in different contexts, without sacrificing its core identity; and third, the chapter offers recommendations for empirical studies of organizational identity.

2. Organizational identification and identity

In their seminal article, Stuart and Whetten [ 5 ] put forward the concept of organizational identity constituting a set of “claims” and specified what was central, distinctive and enduring, but recognizing that organizations can have multiple identities and claims that can be contradictory, ambiguous, or even unrelated. While some authors have attempted to provide more clarity, Pratt addresses the construct of identity and its generality, stating it was “often overused and under specified” beyond general statements about “who are we?” and “who do we want to become?”

Historically, identity and identification are described in classical writings focusing on societies, social systems, and their constituent parts. Such examples as Adam Smith in economics on the division of labor, Babbage on the division of work tasks, Marx on division of social class, Max Weber on the division of status and occupation, and Durkheim on differentiated social structures, each contributed to current views of how individuals, groups, and teams become a cohesive collective in a complex organization. More specifically, Durkheim’s [ 14 ] analysis of the division of labor and differentiated social structures with distinct socio-psychological values and impacts required variations in role homogeneity in sub-systems. 1 His views influenced subsequent writers as diverse as Freud in psychiatry and Harold Laswell in political theory, whose study of world politics includes a chapter entitled “Nations and Classes: The Symbols of Identification.”

Simon [ 15 ] introduced identification to organization theory, describing it as follows: “the process of identification permits the broad organizational arrangements to govern the decisions of the persons who participate in the structure” (p. 102). More specifically, “a person identifies himself with a group when, in making a decision, he evaluates the several alternatives of choice in terms of their consequences for the specified group” in contrast to personal motivation, where “his evaluation is based upon an identification with himself or his family” ([ 16 ], p. 206). Both the fault lines of identity, based on status, perverse incentives, class or occupation, as well as group identification [ 17 ] impact organizational performance by variations in shared goals and preferences, as well as forms of interaction and feedback, often enhanced or lessoned by recruitment patterns and work rules and incentives.

Identity and identification as reference points in organizations also flow from the configuration of roles, role structures, and “clusters of activities” where “a person has an occupational self-identity and is motivated to behave in ways which affirm and enhance the value attributes of that identity” ([ 18 ], p. 179). Theories of social identity assume individual identity is partitioned into ingroups and outgroups is social situations and organizational life, often with an implicit cost–benefit calculation, but acts of altruistic behavior, where behavioral norms benefit the welfare of others, often seen in “collectivist societies,” strengthens organizational identity [ 19 ]. Other approaches take a social constructionist approach, emphasizing social and cultural perspectives [ 20 ], where sense-making comes from stories and narratives of everyday experience [ 21 ], thereby, “…in linking identity and narrative in an individual, we link an individual [career] story to a particular cultural and historical narrative of a group” [ 22 ]. Going further, Dutton et al. [ 23 ] speculate that organizational identification is a process of self-categorization cultivated by distinctive, central, and enduring attributes that get reflected in corporate image, reputation, or strategic vision. Alvesson [ 24 ] describes the need for identity alignment: “…by strengthening the organization’s identity—its experienced distinctiveness, consistency, and stability—it can be assumed that individual identities and identification will be strengthen with what they are supposed to be doing at their work place.”

While some studies [ 25 ] purport to focus on managerial strategies that project images as a tool to shape distinctive identities with stakeholders, the reality is that organizational identities without corresponding integration of individual, sub-unit, or group identification may lead to behavioral frictions, and detachment via lower compliance and cues of detachment. Conflict and cleavages affect group-binding identification, often persisting as conformity of opinion, forms of social interaction, and group loyalties, as well as enhancing internal legitimacy for desired outcomes. While both individuals and groups may have multiple and loosely connected identities, there remains lingering organizations dysfunctions that exacerbate cleavage and conflict, such as hypocrisy, selective amnesia, or disloyalty [ 18 ]. Psychological exit comes from unsatisfactory outcomes, a form of weakening organizational identity and strengthening group identity to give voice for remedial actions [ 26 ]. In the extreme, such sub-identities found in groups and sub-units compete with other forms of identification and may lead to organizational dysfunctions [ 17 ].

Akerlof and Kranton [ 27 ] view organizational identity, with emphasis on why firms must transform workers from outsiders to insiders, as a form of motivational capital. In short, a distinctive identity is a distinctive competence. To quote Likert [ 28 ]. “the favorable attitudes towards the organization and the work are not those of easy complacency but are the attitudes of identification with the organization and its objectives and a high sense of involvement in achieving them” (p. 98). Other theorists suggest variations in organizational identity impact sense-making and interpretative processes [ 29 ], internalization of learning [ 10 ] and processes linking shared values and modes of performance [ 30 ].

Identity and identification cues, viewed as the mental perceptions of individual self-awareness, social interactions and experiences, and self-esteem have many antecedents, such as social class [ 31 ], demographic factors like age, race, religion, or sex [ 32 ], and national culture and identity [ 33 ]. Studies emphasizing social construction perspectives stem from individual accounts, often defined in social narratives, histories, and biographies rooted in time and place [ 34 ]. As Hammack [ 22 ] emphasizes, “…in linking identity and narrative in an individual, we link an individual story to a particular cultural and historical narrative of a group” (p. 230). At a general level, organizational culture depicts the set of norms and values that are widely shared and strongly held throughout the organization [ 35 ], and refers to the “unspoken code of communication among members of an organization” [ 36 ] and aids and supplements task coordination and group identity. In this way, individual employees better understand the premises of decision choices in problem solving at the organizational level. In complex organizations, identity is linked to the strategic capacity of choice opportunities and implementation dynamics of priorities and preferences. As Thoenig and Paradieise [ 37 ] emphasize, “strategic capacity lies to a great extent in how much its internal subunits … shape its identity, define its priorities approve its positions, prepare the way for general agreement to be adopted on its roadmap and provide a framework for the decisions and acts of all its components” (p. 299).

Such diverse views leave open how organizational identity, or shared central vision, confers competitive advantage in contested spaces. As a starting hypothesis, a shared identity strengthens coordination across diverse groups applying common norms, codes and protocols, hence improving shared learning skills. In a similar vein, individual cleavages and loyalties are lessoned by shared interactions and information sharing that mobilize learning tools. Further, organizational identity strengthens individual identities via performance success that promotes a shared set of preferences, expectation, and habits of rule setting.

3. Organizational performance at Toyota

By any standards—shareholder value, product innovation, employee satisfaction measured by low turnover and lack of strike action, market capitalization—Toyota has been astonishingly successful, both against rival incumbents in the auto sector, but as a organizational pioneer in transportation with just-in-time thinking. Against existing rivals at home, or in an industry with firms pursuing growth by alliances and acquisition (Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, VW-Porsche), facing receivership and saved by public funding (GM and Chrysler), exiting as a going concern (British Leyland) or new startups (Tesla). Toyota’s performance is unrivaled. Toyota remains a firm committed to organic development, steady and consistent market share in all key international markets, and cultivating a shared identity within its eco-system around measurable outcomes of product safety, quality, and consumer value.

As shown in Figure 1 , despite many forms of competitive advantages, such as size, high domestic market share, being part of a larger group, or diversification, there are many times when the side expected to win actually is less profitable and may actually lose. Toyota’s growth and expansion, despite the turbulent 2009 recall and temporary retreats [ 38 , 39 ], comes with consistent profitability and market share growth. In this organizational transformation, Toyota has replicated its identity of “safety, quality, and value” outside its home market, often depicted by foreigners as “inscrutable,” closed, and Japan Inc. [ 40 ]. Strategically, this organizational identity framework is multipurpose, allowing shared alignment of identities with domestic employees, suppliers and supervisors, but also incorporating these identity attributes first to foreign operations in North America and subsequently to Europe and Asia. Toyota management considers the firm as a learning organization, where learning symmetries take place at all levels, vertically and horizontally.

Operating Profits versus Firm Revenues in the Auto Sector.

Unlike many corporate design models of multinationals, where foreign subsidiaries passively replicate the production systems of the home market (a miniature replica effect) or seek out decision-attention from head-quarters [ 41 ] Toyota is evolving as a global enterprise. In this model, Toyota’s foreign subsidies and trade blocks (e.g., NAFTA and Europe), solve key problems and translate the protocols for headquarters and its global network of factories, distribution outlets, and service and maintenance dealerships. In this way, Toyota’s training protocols, network learning systems, and using foreign subsidies to develop new technologies (e.g., Toyota Canada pioneering cold weather technologies for ignitions engineering), i.e., a learning chain that mobilizes employee identity to network identity, including its global supply chain collaboration [ 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ].

To illustrate the complexity of contemporary auto production and the need to evolve both organizational design around supply chains, and the nature of complementarities in production, firms like Toyota must realign engineering and technological systems to novel role configurations for a diverse workforce. A car (or truck) has over 5000 parts, components, and sub-assemblies, where factories are linked to diverse supply chains with tightly-knit communications and transport linkages, often across national boundaries, to produce a factory production cycle of 1 minute per vehicle, or even less. Parts or components like steel, for instance, are not commodities, undifferentiated only by price, and Japanese steel producers produced the high carbon steel that was more resistant to water, hence rust. This production cycle demands very high quality and safety of each part and component, plus the precision engineering processes to assemble them. This alignment determines not only the standards of quality and safety of the finished vehicle but the image and reputation of the company, plus an indispensable need to retain price value of the brand in the aftermarket sales cycle.

To this contemporary production system, reshaped and refined since Toyota first introduced in 1956 what Womack et al. [ 46 ] termed “the machine that changed the world,” auto production now faces a steady, relentless, and inexorable technology disruption. This shift in engines and fuel consumption technologies, away from diesel and gasoline-powered vehicles, to new dominant technologies, such as electric vehicles, fuel-cells, battery, hydrogen, or hybrid, each requiring massive changes to traditional parts and components suppliers, and the layout of factory assembly. Successful firms thus require forward-looking strategic intent and novel organizational configurations both to exploit existing systems based on gasoline vehicles, or novel organizational systems to explore new technologies and processes. Strategies differ widely. Tesla as a new startup has dedicated factories and labs using lithium battery technology. To gain equivalent scale of Toyota, GM, and Volkswagen, i.e., over 10 million vehicles per year, Nissan and Renault joined with Mitsubishi as a new alliances and equity investment partner.

By contrast, both Ford and GM are retreating from large markets like Europe, Japan, or India with direct-foreign investment strategies. Even more intrusive to existing production programs and protocols are new demands for data analytics, artificial intelligence, robotic and associated Internet and social media technologies. Both incumbent firms, new startups, and suppliers are developing futuristic technologies in drivers’ facial recognition, driving habits, and consumer disabilities, from wheel chairs to hearing that impact cars of the future, and impose threats to existing distinctive competences and corporate identity. Not all firms can manage simultaneously the processes of exploitation of existing organizational programs, and the exploration of product innovation and assembly [ 47 ]. Toyota is an exception.

The Toyota production system is transformational, an organizational philosophy around two core ideas, kaizen or principles of continuous improvement, and nemawashi , or consensus decision-making that allow network effects across its global factories, research labs, its supplier organizations, and related parts of the global eco-system, from universities to global shipping firms. In the firm’s century-old evolution, starting as a leading textile firm that still exists but migrating to auto manufacturing as only the second largest by unit sales (behind Nissan), Toyota has emerged as the top producer both at home and globally, measured by market share, and a leading player in markets like North America, Europe, Latin America, India and China, where many rivals have a low market share presence (e.g., Europe firms in the US, American firms in Europe).

Strategies of corporate retreat in key markets (GM in Europe, GM and Ford in India, Ford in Japan), suggest home market advantages are the new testing ground for first-mover disadvantage [ 48 ] when firms face massive technology disruption. To cite an example, during the 1990s, four major automakers, Toyota, GM, Honda, and Ford, took the lead in the development of hybrid technologies, with GM the leader with 23 patents in hybrid vehicles (vs. 17 for Toyota, 16 for Ford, and 8 for Honda). By 2000, however, Honda and Toyota were the clear leaders, with Honda had filed 170 patents, and Toyota with 166 in hybrid drivetrain technology, far ahead pf Ford with 85 and GM at 56. Today, Fords’ hybrid is a license from Toyota.

4. Toyota identity as a social construct

The auto sector symbolizes the development of post-war multinationals largely based on firm-specific capabilities and proprietary advantages. This organizational evolution includes changing work mechanisms characterized as machine theory by management [ 49 ], a catch-all phrase to describe scientific management techniques espoused by Frederick Taylor from his 1911 book with that title. He first learned time management at Philips Executer Academy and became an early practitioner of what became known as kaizen, continuous improvement, working with Henry Gantt [ 50 ], studying all aspects of work, tools, machine speeds, workflow design, the conversion of raw materials into finished products, and payment systems. The Taylor studies, later dubbed Fordism [ 51 ], was an approach to eliminate waste and unnecessary movements, or “soldiering”—a deliberate restriction of worker output.

Taylor’s disciples in the engineering profession spread his message beyond America, to Europe, as well as to Japan and Russia, where even Lenin and Trotsky developed an interest after the Revolution of 1917. In appearances before Congressional committees, and in other forums, Taylor’s theories faced withering criticisms and great resistance by American union movement a “dehumanizing of the worker” and a tool for profits at the expense of the worker. [ 50 , 52 ]. In Japan, however, Taylorism and scientific management had wide acceptance, starting with Yukinori Hoshino’s translation of Principles of Scientific Management with the title, The Secret of Saving Lost Motion, which sold 2 million copies. Several firms adopted scientific management practices, including standard motions, worker bonuses, and Japanese authors published best sellers on similar notions of work practices, including one entitled Secrets for Eliminating Futile Work and Increasing Production [ 3 ].

After 1945 in Japan, given the wartime devastation of Japan’s industrial capacity, resource scarcity—food, building supplies, raw materials of all sorts, electric power—had a profound and lasting impact on Japanese society, even more so when the American military supervised the Occupation and displayed abundance of everyday goods—big cars, no shortage of food, long leisure hours, and consumer spending using American dollars. As Japanese firms slowly rebuilt, the corporate ethos promoted efficient use of everything, and waste became a watchword for inefficiency. Japanese executives visited US factories, the Japanese media documented US success stories. American management practices were widely emulated, and US consultants—notably Peter Drucker, W. Juran, and W. Edwards Deming—had an immense following and their books, papers and personal appearances were publicized, translated and widely-read, even by high school students. While American firms emphasized a marketing philosophy where the customer is king, Japanese firms remained committed to production, helped in part by trading firms, led by the nine giant Soga Sosha , to distribute and sell both at home and abroad. US human resource practices also showed a stark contrast with Japanese practices. In the US, the rise of the trade union movement and national legislation from Roosevelt’s New Deal, meant that management-worker relations for firms and factories were contractual, setting out legal norms, and negotiated commitments for pay, seniority, promotion, job rotation and skills differentials, so that worker identity was less towards the firm, more to the trade union, and what incentives and compensation union leadership could deliver [ 53 ].

Japan industrial firms, by contrast, cultivated three features of management-worker relations. The first was life time employment—once hired, the employee stayed in the firm until retirement. Second, wages and compensation were determined by seniority—young workers received lower wages and bonus compensation, just as older workers were paid more relative to their actual productivity. And third, firms had enterprise unions, as distinct from industry unions in the US and Europe (e.g., unions autoworkers, coal workers or shipbuilders). All three characteristics greatly extended the psychological linkages between employee identity and the firm’s identity, and the employee’s career success was directly tied to the firm’s success. In Japan, with very low turnover, but high screening processes, firms hired the best graduates, and training was on-going and formed part of the job description, with little layoffs, firing, or absenteeism. Additionally, there was little employee fear of adopting new technologies. Abegglen and Stalk [ 54 ] describe the implication of technological diffusion as follows: “…it is the relatively close identification of the interests of kaisha and their employees that have made this rate of technological change possible and the patterns of union relations implicit in that degree of identification” (p. 133). Indeed, some writers go further, citing how the human resource system was imposed on a Confucian society, with an ethos to govern individual and group interactions for reciprocal benefits, in a market system of winners and losers. As Morishima [ 55 ] puts it, Korea and China chose Confucianism with the market, Japan chose the market with Confucianism, while North America and Europe were characterized by Protestant-driven market behavior of winners and losers. For Toyota, a family enterprise with links to many sectors like steel, textiles, aviation and machinery, the post-war environment brought inevitable contracts with American automotive practices.

Okika [ 56 ] describes the implications of the evolving Japanese model of labor-management relations in the firm:

Japanese enterprises made their decisions by gaining an overall consensus through repeated discussions starting from the bottom and working up … making it easier for workers to accept technical innovation flexibly. For a start, that sense of identity with the firm is strong and they are aware that the firm’s development is to their own advantage, so they tend to improve the efficiency of its production system and strengthens its competitiveness (p. 22).

Across Japan, industrial firms, from Sony to Canon, recruited workers from rural areas, executives read US textbooks, and many visited US factories to study management practices. The production focus of Japanese firms, in a competitive environment of limited slack, hence the need for managerial improvisation and what the French call bricolage , i.e., making do with what is available [ 57 ]. In operational terms, this meant long production runs, division of labor taken to the extreme is monotonous assembly work tasks, product output determined by managerial estimates of demand, and wide use of buffer stocks to absorb varying time cycles of different sub-assembly needs. Buffer stocks also allowed conflicting management department goals to get sorted out with little time constraints, and less need to focus on quality issues based on bad product design, resource waste (e.g., steel), or timing processes that lead to product defects. Organizational reforms widely adopted across US industry, such as product divisions for large enterprises, largely left the product system intact, allowing middle management to focus on coordination between operational benchmarks at the factory level and financial benchmarks imposed by top management [ 58 ]. GM was seen in Japan as the prototype models to emulate.

5. Challenges to orthodox industrial production

The advance of industrialization involved new methods of energy, raw materials, dominant technologies, and organizational configurations [ 58 ] but relatively little to consideration actual production systems, especially after Henry Ford introduced mass production using interchangeable parts. As foreign executives visited Ford’s assembly lines, there were dissenting opinions, such as Czech entrepreneur Thomas Bata and S. Toyoda who worked a year in Detroit. How could three core concepts be integrated—craft skills of custom-made products like a kimono or a house, the volume-cost advantages of mass production, and the nigh utilization capacity of process production in beer or chemicals?

Toyota’s introduction of the lean production system has been widely studied, 2 including its the origins in the 1950s by Ohno [ 62 ], when visiting America and adopting ideas from super market chains, and had strong views on scientific management’s focus on the total production system, and Japanese concepts of jishu kanri (voluntary work groups). Japanese managers had both knowledge and experience with traditional crafts sectors like woodblock prints and silk designs in textiles or the long training needed for Japan’s culinary arts. How could three core concepts be integrated—craft skills of custom-made products like a kimono or a house, the volume-cost advantages of mass production, and the nigh utilization capacity of process production in beer or chemicals?

Core concepts of lean production is the desire to maximize capacity utilization, by reducing production variability and minimize excess inventories with a view to eradicating waste [ 54 ]. But other factors are critical, such as supplying high quality workmanship of craft production, reducing per unit costs via mass production using interchangeable parts, and high capacity utilization of continuous flow production, typically seen as three distinct systems. The ingrained ethos of resource scarcity in Japanese society, demonstrating that low slack in organizations encourage search behavior [ 63 ], and these requirements required pooling of efforts as an organizational philosophy ( Figure 2 ).

Contrasts Between Traditional Technical Design and Toyota’s Model.

To perfect the system over time, starting in the 1960s, Toyota accelerated the adoption of high work commitment by organizing workers in teams, reducing the number of job classifications, seeking suggestions from employees, and investing in training of new workers, 47–48 days per worker, compared to less than 5–6 days for US plants, 21–22 days for European plants [ 3 ]. The focus on production as an integrated system, using hardware ideas like quick die change equipment, robots, and advanced computer-aided design, also meant removing traditional tasks that are noisy, hard on the eyes, or dangerous to allow employees to concentrate on tasks like quality assessment, and allowing a worker to stop the entire production line, known as andon, in the case of equipment problems, shortage of parts, and discovery of defects, i.e., transferring certain responsibilities from managers and supervisors to workers [ 60 ]. Paradoxically, Toyota and other Japanese auto plants were far less automated than their foreign-owned rivals, not just for assembly line work but other tasks like welding and painting.

Einstein once said, “Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler.” Simplicity became a watchword in the evolution of Toyota’s lean production system, a contrast to the complicated vertical integration model adopted in Detroit. Toyota adopted a highly focused structural design, becoming a systems assembler and sourcing from dedicated suppliers, each with core competences in specialized domains and technologies. Production engineering—e.g., craft, mass assembly or process systems—became central features as organizational configuration, choosing from the strengths of each but discarding the perceived weaknesses. Stress was place on the worker, avoiding the monotonous routines of a moving assembly line, by including job rotation and special training to apply quality management circles within a group structure. The advantages of process manufacturing as high capacity utilization came from high initial overhead of equipment and overhead, including IT investments, but allowing flexibility in machine set up, such as quick die change that reduced the need to stop the line for product variability from 3 months, to 3 weeks, to 3 minutes, to less than 3 seconds. The internal factory layout, an S shape configuration, changed the sequencing of tasks, the forms of supervisor-employee interactions, and the speed and timing of interdependencies between the production operations and external suppliers of parts, delivering “just in time.”

In some cases, the interactions involve the core production system and independent suppliers serving as complementarities 3 where the competitive advantage of one is augmented by the presence of the other [ 45 ]. Early examples included Ford’s cooperation with Firestone to produce tires, or Renault’s links to Michelin to produce radial tires. Complementarities allow synergistic advantages, a contrast to additive, discrete features [ 64 ], and allow two immediate effects: knowledge spillovers at differing stages of production, including process learning impacts, and complimentary and coordinated changes in activities and programs across the value chain, such as process benchmarks for product design, scheduling, inspection, and time cycles of production. Toyota cultivates complementarity attributes but instituted a revised activity sequence, discarding production based on estimated demand forecasts, and turning finished production of cars and trucks to car lots for ultimate sale. The pull system starts with customer demands, allowing novel design using the advantages of the need for high capacity utilization of smaller actual output demands, to manufacture outputs with shorter time for product delivery.

6. JIT and Toyota’s deep supplier collaboration systems

Toyota’s lean production both reconfigures the boundaries of the firm by incorporating the supply chain as an integrated, cooperative network with collective competences and capabilities across the network value chain and incorporates decision processes for learning and knowledge sharing that shifts subunit identities to a collective identity. Lean production requires these system-wide processes to address inoperability issues like buffer stocks, time delays, peak demand, or product defects. Deep collaboration across sub-units needs robust methods to design, evaluate, and verify data gathering and data feedback. Unlike economic models of transaction costs, or contractual relations, lean production emphasizes symmetrical collaboration to optimize outcome effectiveness for the total eco-system organization, not sub-optimize for only certain members, sub-units, or component firms. Toyota’s collective identity is a notable corporate example that combines both superb operational performance but also long-term, forward looking innovation through its complex ecosystem of Tier I and Tier II supplier system. As depicted in Figure 3 , Toyota aligns its supply system both domestically and overseas with knowledge systems, including standards of precision and quality, including using internal staffing and consultants to assure optimum outcomes against agreed benchmarks.

Figure 3.

Toyota’s Knowledge Diffusion and Sharing Approaches.

By replacing asymmetric contractual relations based on cost, Toyota shifts the locus of corporate risk to the total eco-system, involving Toyota at the center, the Tier I and Tier II suppliers, and their Tier I and Tier II suppliers. The lean “pull” of production control is a connectivity to calibrate inventory at each stage, starting with the final assembly and preceding to each preceding stage without delay. Unlike the push model, where the early steps of sub-assembly is sequential to subsequent stages and require buffer inventory to lesson delays, Toyota’s lean system of ‘pulling’ requires training and upgrading skills employed at different work stations, and close communications across the total supply chain system. To make this system work, economic transaction costs are discarded, and replaced by a currency of cooperation using preventive tools and benchmarks to meet high standards of reliability where Tier II firms meet rigorous standards of price, quality, and delivery. Suppliers are battle-tested, i.e., they must conform to agreed specifications and their products are accepted only after years of testing. Tier I suppliers, on the other hand, meet the exacting standards of Tier II suppliers but they form part of the design, research, and testing of new products, markets, and technological innovations. Tier II suppliers can “graduate” to being Tier I suppliers if they meet benchmark performance over time, thus demanding intense deep collaboration at Level 4 ( Figure 4 ).

Levels of Value Chain Collaboration: Toyota as Level 4.

Less coordinated systems of structure, processes, and executive decision-making inhibit eco-system operability. Three integrating systems are vital: (1) technical systems, including IT, software, and data; (2) organizational tools of coordination, like dedication teams supported by specialists and intense data sharing; and (3) collaborative executive decision processes that champion novelty, innovation, and feedback [ 65 , 66 ]. Inoperability can come from seemingly mundane tasks, like loading supplies on a truck with different invoices, manifest requirements, and delivery times. Separate and differing organizational processes inhibit deep collaboration. Inoperability arises from silo information flows and compartmentalization. Even with aspirational targets of decision-making, organizations acting alone fail to develop and improve competencies and capabilities to manage this integrated system via experiential learning, feedback, and criticism [ 67 , 68 , 69 ].

Deep collaboration needs robust methods to design, evaluate, and verify data gathering and data feedback to optimize effectiveness for the total eco-system organization, not sub-optimize for only certain members, sub-parts, or component firms [ 70 ]. Toyota’s lean production now has both a language and a vocabulary to remove task ambiguities and increase identity among workers, sub-units, and factories in the global network, but requiring a learning process to perfect clear meanings and defined protocols. Words like kanban, andon, jioda, yo-i-dan, and kijosei have precise meanings and routines, and such terms as reverse engineering, early detection, and ringi seido or consensus decision-making, simplify and codify precise protocols for shared communication. Benchmark techniques are widely used but less to evaluate past performance against competitors, but more to evaluate current performance against higher targets and aspirational stretch goals [ 71 ]. Indeed, deep collaboration at each stage requires a judicious combination of sharing ideas, new targets, real time feedback, and potential revisions. Where ambiguous signals, informal targets and past measures become explicit, and shared across the system.

Training programs—internships, formal courses, apprenticeships—build organizational capabilities and mitigates risks from operating with incomplete knowledge, inexperience, understanding operating rules and procedures. Deep collaboration illustrates the need for similar training approaches to know, understand, and apply knowledge across the entire system. Toyota gains three network advantages: positional, where individual managers and subsidiaries access tools and protocols for high performance processes and benchmarks that create learning; structural, where communication connections strengthen the effectiveness and acuity of information flows to attend to emerging problems; agility, by strengthening interactions between individuals and teams, and embedding the new benchmarks across the entire network of factories, sales offices, and supplier organizations.

7. Split identities at Toyota

By the early 1980s, Toyota, like many leading Japanese corporations such as Sony, Komatsu, Canon, Matsushita, and Hitachi, were making deep inroads in the American market via exports. The auto sector was singled out, as 500,000 American autoworkers were laid off, a new President, Ronald Reagan faced pressure from Congress to take legislative action, and firms like Ford applied to the American International Trade Commission for temporary relief, following similar action by the powerful auto union, the UAW. Further, Japan’s emphasis on direct export sales stood in contrast to American strategies of direct investment in foreign markets, often by acquisition of local companies [ 8 , 45 , 72 ] . 4 For firms like Toyota, growing high dependence on exports meant that larger total volumes (domestic + exports) strengthened their product capacity and cost position at home, including that of their supplier base. Japan’s auto exports to the US reached 6.6 million vehicles in 1981, up from a million units 10 years earlier, 566,042, accounted for almost 20% of total Japanese auto exports.

The imposition of Japan’s export restraints, formalized in June 1981, coincided a $1.5b loan guarantee to Chrysler, indefinite layoffs of over 30,000 auto workers, and sectors like steel facing declining market share. Pressed by firms like Ford for Congressional actions, MITI imposed export quotas on each Japanese company, a form of “administrative guidance” designed to accommodate political goals in each country but was in fact a “cartel” solution aimed to appease the US government [ 3 , 74 ]. The percentage breakdown for each of the five biggest exporters, calculated mainly by US exports in the previous 2 years, was as follows: Toyota (30.75), Nissan (27.15), Honda (20.75), Mazda (9.48), and Mitsubishi (6.7). The impact for each company in the brutally competitive Japanese market varied: Honda was the first to begin direct investment, opening its first plant in Ohio and then Ontario; while Toyota kept to its quota by exports but strengthened domestic operations to build up a commanding market share lead, over 50%. For the Japanese auto sector, as Summerville notes [ 74 ], “investment in local production was also a crucial way to insulate oneself from further export cutbacks, and of course to get away from the thumb of the Japanese state” (p. 395). Toyota illustrates the complexity to manage very fast growth in foreign markets, while transferring its corporate identity to a network identity of safety, quality, and value [ 43 ], even though the knowledge sharing processes that are now taken for granted at home, including quality standards of suppliers, may not exist in foreign countries [ 75 , 76 , 77 , 78 ].

The massive recall in 1999, where Toyota accepted responsibility to service over 8.5 million vehicles, the President appearing before Congress, and sundry lawsuits launched in a litigious environment against a foreign-owned firm, have been analyzed and studied 5 in the media, the automotive press, and by academic studies, with mixed conclusions. The reality, despite paying fines, accepting responsibility, apologizing to the American public, and accepting the huge financial costs of the recall, Toyota refused to play the blame game, or take easy solutions, like importing more parts from Canada or Japan, or shifting American production to Canada or Mexico. Toyota took the difficult decision, true to its identity, of fixing the core problem, raising the quality standards of its American-own parts supplier, devoting more resources to training, and accepting short-term risks to financial performance, particularly when leading automakers from Europe, Korea, and Japan were investing in the US market. The Detroit Big 3 received temporary relief, a massive bailout after bankruptcy from the US and Canadian government, and a 25% tariff on imported trucks, one of the most profitable segments for American producers. Toyota quietly responded about building a truck factory in Texas.

8. Discussion and conclusions

In a world of disruptive corporate strategy and identity offer a refined tool for alignment of stakeholders to create competitive advantage. Corporate culture focuses on the behavioral assumptions to perceive, think, and feel in problem-solving [ 81 ] within the organization, while organizational identity is a projection of that culture to external stakeholders to align both cognitive and behavioral tools for growth and innovation. Individual and sub-unit identities can lead to cleavage and discord, especially where environmental forces make knowledge and information asymmetric, so special attention and sense-making requires an adaptive alignment to improve performance ( Figure 5 ).

Organizational Strategy and Identity Linkages.

Increasing, all organizations face four separate but related challenges that impact overall performance but also survival as independent entities. Clearly, technological change imposes new challenges for internal organizational competences and capabilities, as firms scramble for mergers, takeovers, and new alliances to meet the test of size and foreign market penetration, or a retreat approach or even drift. Decision uncertainty influences the nature of internal competencies, learning barriers, and the sustainable position of existing firms. The third challenge with disruption is the growing complexity of the firm’s ecosystem, and what is the optimal scale of a firm’s future business case, based on potential changes to customer markets across multiple countries?

The fourth challenge relates to the first three but is subtler. That challenge concerns what might be called the Galapagos trap, namely designing an ecosystem that is suitable for one market that is unsuitable for global markets and allows little transfer of knowledge or engineering knowhow to other markets with a separate eco-system, including the supplier system. Recent examples include Japan’s unique wireless standards that did not apply in foreign markets systems, or American big car gas guzzlers with limited fuel mileage that did not meet foreign market regulations. Toyota’s development of hydrogen fuel powered vehicles, based on new chemical technologies, is a case in point, where existing infrastructure lacks the necessary technical requirements for even limited mass appeal. In all four of these development challenges, the competitive race is to avoid the lessons of the computer industry, where new smart phone technologies displaced existing incumbents, lowered entry barriers for new startups, and shifted the main suppliers and their location.

Such fundamental changes pose difficult questions for firms’ missions, corporate identity, and framing long term employee loyalty. As Simon [ 76 ] warned decades ago, “organizational identification…implies absorption of strategic plans into the minds of organizational members where they can have direct effect upon the entire decision-process, starting with the identification of problems…” (p. 141).

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• In one of the great ironies of business history, in the 1930s, when Ford and General Motors provided two-thirds of the Japanese car market, mostly by assembling kits from their home market, the Japanese government, despite their desire to focus on auto production, wanted Ford to establish a joint-venture with Toyota. Various agreements were planned, including land purchase, but Ford, denied permission to expand local production on its own, retreated from Japan in 1939, followed by GM [73]. In 1980, China invited Toyota to establish a joint venture, but when Toyota decided not to accept, China turned to Volkswagen, not by far the most successful foreign carmaker, producing 4 million units, in a market of 2 million a month. Toyota produces only 1 million per year.
• For background, see Andrews et al. [79], Camuffo and Wilhelm [39], and Cole [80].

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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(Still) learning from Toyota

In the two years since I retired as president and CEO of Canadian Autoparts Toyota (CAPTIN), I’ve had the good fortune to work with many global manufacturers in different industries on challenges related to lean management. Through that exposure, I’ve been struck by how much the Toyota production system has already changed the face of operations and management, and by the energy that companies continue to expend in trying to apply it to their own operations.

Yet I’ve also found that even though companies are currently benefiting from lean, they have largely just scratched the surface, given the benefits they could achieve. What’s more, the goal line itself is moving—and will go on moving—as companies such as Toyota continue to define the cutting edge. Of course, this will come as no surprise for any student of the Toyota production system and should even serve as a challenge. After all, the goal is continuous improvement.

Room to improve

The two pillars of the Toyota way of doing things are kaizen (the philosophy of continuous improvement) and respect and empowerment for people, particularly line workers. Both are absolutely required in order for lean to work. One huge barrier to both goals is complacency. Through my exposure to different manufacturing environments, I’ve been surprised to find that senior managers often feel they’ve been very successful in their efforts to emulate Toyota’s production system—when in fact their progress has been limited.

The reality is that many senior executives—and by extension many organizations—aren’t nearly as self-reflective or objective about evaluating themselves as they should be. A lot of executives have a propensity to talk about the good things they’re doing rather than focus on applying resources to the things that aren’t what they want them to be.

When I recently visited a large manufacturer, for example, I compared notes with a company executive about an evaluation tool it had adapted from Toyota. The tool measures a host of categories (such as safety, quality, cost, and human development) and averages the scores on a scale of zero to five. The executive was describing how his unit scored a five—a perfect score. “Where?” I asked him, surprised. “On what dimension?”

“Overall,” he answered. “Five was the average.”

When he asked me about my experiences at Toyota over the years and the scores its units received, I answered candidly that the best score I’d ever seen was a 3.2—and that was only for a year, before the unit fell back. What happens in Toyota’s culture is that as soon as you start making a lot of progress toward a goal, the goal is changed and the carrot is moved. It’s a deep part of the culture to create new challenges constantly and not to rest when you meet old ones. Only through honest self-reflection can senior executives learn to focus on the things that need improvement, learn how to close the gaps, and get to where they need to be as leaders.

A self-reflective culture is also likely to contribute to what I call a “no excuse” organization, and this is valuable in times of crisis. When Toyota faced serious problems related to the unintended acceleration of some vehicles, for example, we took this as an opportunity to revisit everything we did to ensure quality in the design of vehicles—from engineering and production to the manufacture of parts and so on. Companies that can use crises to their advantage will always excel against self-satisfied organizations that already feel they’re the best at what they do.

A common characteristic of companies struggling to achieve continuous improvement is that they pick and choose the lean tools they want to use, without necessarily understanding how these tools operate as a system. (Whenever I hear executives say “we did kaizen ,” which in fact is an entire philosophy, I know they don’t get it.) For example, the manufacturer I mentioned earlier had recently put in an andon system, to alert management about problems on the line. 1 1. Many executives will have heard of the andon cord, a Toyota innovation now common in many automotive and assembly environments: line workers are empowered to address quality or other problems by stopping production. Featuring plasma-screen monitors at every workstation, the system had required a considerable development and programming effort to implement. To my mind, it represented a knee-buckling amount of investment compared with systems I’d seen at Toyota, where a new tool might rely on sticky notes and signature cards until its merits were proved.

An executive was explaining to me how successful the implementation had been and how well the company was doing with lean. I had been visiting the plant for a week or so. My back was to the monitor out on the shop floor, and the executive was looking toward it, facing me, when I surprised him by quoting a series of figures from the display. When he asked how I’d done so, I pointed out that the tool was broken; the numbers weren’t updating and hadn’t since Monday. This was no secret to the system’s operators and to the frontline workers. The executive probably hadn’t been visiting with them enough to know what was happening and why. Quite possibly, the new system receiving such praise was itself a monument to waste.

Room to reflect

At the end of the day, stories like this underscore the fact that applying lean is a leadership challenge, not just an operational one. A company’s senior executives often become successful as leaders through years spent learning how to contribute inside a particular culture. Indeed, Toyota views this as a career-long process and encourages it by offering executives a diversity of assignments, significant amounts of training, and even additional college education to help prepare them as lean leaders. It’s no surprise, therefore, that should a company bring in an initiative like Toyota’s production system—or any lean initiative requiring the culture to change fundamentally—its leaders may well struggle and even view the change as a threat. This is particularly true of lean because, in many cases, rank-and-file workers know far more about the system from a “toolbox standpoint” than do executives, whose job is to understand how the whole system comes together. This fact can be intimidating to some executives.

Senior executives who are considering lean management (or are already well into a lean transformation and looking for ways to get more from the effort and make it stick) should start by recognizing that they will need to be comfortable giving up control. This is a lesson I’ve learned firsthand. I remember going to CAPTIN as president and CEO of the company and wanting to get off to a strong start. Hoping to figure out how to get everyone engaged and following my initiatives, I told my colleagues what I wanted. Yet after six or eight months, I wasn’t getting where I wanted to go quickly enough. Around that time, a Japanese colleague told me, “Deryl, if you say ‘do this’ everybody will do it because you’re president, whether you say ‘go this way,’ or ‘go that way.’ But you need to figure out how to manage these issues having absolutely no power at all.”

So with that advice in mind, I stepped back and got a core group of good people together from all over the company—a person from production control, a night-shift supervisor, a manager, a couple of engineers, and a person in finance—and challenged them to develop a system. I presented them with the direction but asked them to make it work.

And they did. By the end of the three-year period we’d set as a target, for example, we’d dramatically improved our participation rate in problem-solving activities—going from being one of the worst companies in Toyota Motor North America to being one of the best. The beauty of the effort was that the team went about constructing the program in ways I never would have thought of. For example, one team member (the production-control manager) wanted more participation in a survey to determine where we should spend additional time training. So he created a storyboard highlighting the steps of problem solving and put it on the shop floor with questionnaires that he’d developed. To get people to fill them out, his team offered the respondents a hamburger or a hot dog that was barbecued right there on the shop floor. This move was hugely successful.

Another tip whose value I’ve observed over the years is to find a mentor in the company, someone to whom you can speak candidly. When you’re the president or CEO, it can be kind of lonely, and you won’t have anyone to talk with. I was lucky because Toyota has a robust mentorship system, which pairs retired company executives with active ones. But executives anywhere can find a sounding board—someone who speaks the same corporate language you do and has a similar background. It’s worth the effort to find one.

Finally, if you’re going to lead lean, you need knowledge and passion. I’ve been around leaders who had plenty of one or the other, but you really need both. It’s one thing to create all the energy you need to start a lean initiative and way of working, but quite another to keep it going—and that’s the real trick.

Room to run

Even though I’m retired from Toyota, I’m still engaged with the company. My experiences have given me a unique vantage point to see what Toyota is doing to push the boundaries of lean further still.

For example, about four years ago Toyota began applying lean concepts from its factories beyond the factory floor—taking them into finance, financial services, the dealer networks, production control, logistics, and purchasing. This may seem ironic, given the push so many companies outside the auto industry have made in recent years to drive lean thinking into some of these areas. But that’s very consistent with the deliberate way Toyota always strives to perfect something before it’s expanded, looking to “add as you go” rather than “do it once and stop.”

Of course, Toyota still applies lean thinking to its manufacturing operations as well. Take major model changes, which happen about every four to eight years. They require a huge effort—changing all the stamping dies, all the welding points and locations, the painting process, the assembly process, and so on. Over the past six years or so, Toyota has nearly cut in half the time it takes to do a complete model change.

Similarly, Toyota is innovating on the old concept of a “single-minute exchange of dies” 2 2. Quite honestly, the single-minute exchange of dies aspiration is really just that—a goal. The fastest I ever saw anyone do it during my time at New United Motor Manufacturing (NUMMI) was about 10 to 15 minutes. and applying that thinking to new areas, such as high-pressure injection molding for bumpers or the manufacture of alloy wheels. For instance, if you were making an aluminum-alloy wheel five years ago and needed to change from one die to another, that would require about four or five hours because of the nature of the smelting process. Now, Toyota has adjusted the process so that the changeover time is down to less than an hour.

Finally, Toyota is doing some interesting things to go on pushing the quality of its vehicles. It now conducts surveys at ports, for example, so that its workers can do detailed audits of vehicles as they are funneled in from Canada, the United States, and Japan. This allows the company to get more consistency from plant to plant on everything from the torque applied to lug nuts to the gloss levels of multiple reds so that color standards for paint are met consistently.

The changes extend to dealer networks as well. When customers take delivery of a car, the salesperson is accompanied by a technician who goes through it with the new owner, in a panel-by-panel and option-by-option inspection. They’re looking for actionable information: is an interior surface smudged? Is there a fender or hood gap that doesn’t look quite right? All of this checklist data, fed back through Toyota’s engineering, design, and development group, can be sent on to the specific plant that produced the vehicle, so the plant can quickly compare it with other vehicles produced at the same time.

All of these moves to continue perfecting lean are consistent with the basic Toyota approach I described: try and perfect anything before you expand it. Yet at the same time, the philosophy of continuous improvement tells us that there’s ultimately no such thing as perfection. There’s always another goal to reach for and more lessons to learn.

Deryl Sturdevant, a senior adviser to McKinsey, was president and CEO of Canadian Autoparts Toyota (CAPTIN) from 2006 to 2011. Prior to that, he held numerous executive positions at Toyota, as well as at the New United Motor Manufacturing (NUMMI) plant (a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors), in Fremont, California.

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Digital in the Driver’s Seat: Accelerating Toyota’s Transformation to Mobility Services

An in-depth description of a firm’s approach to an IT management issue (intended for MBA and executive education)

In 2020 Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) was the world’s top-selling car manufacturer. Despite this, the company was being driven to excel further in response to changing consumer expectations, technological developments, and new kinds of entrants into the automotive industry. Toyota’s leaders sought to accelerate the company’s culture of incremental innovation and realize a bold new future centered on mobility services. They pursued this by launching Toyota Connected, a new organization with its own decision rights and ways of working and a mandate to create new digital offerings for Toyota. In parallel, a new division within Toyota Motor North America called Connected Technologies facilitated the company-wide diffusion and commercialization of the offerings Toyota Connected created. This case describes what it took to empower the small, independent, agile Toyota Connected and how the entity collaborated with Connected Technologies to design and scale new digital offerings and new ways of working for TMC globally.

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Toyota’s Lean Management Program Explained (with Real Life Examples)

by Frank Stuart , on Nov 1, 2023 3:45:00 AM

If you’ve ever searched for information online about the Toyota Production System, you've probably seen a variety of house-shaped graphics. But even though we all know what a house is, understanding what the TPS house graphic means can be a challenge — especially when some of the words are Japanese.

In this article, I’ll explain the house graphic and Toyota’s lean management principles. Because I worked for Toyota and have spent many years as a Toyota lean practitioner, I’ll share insights you won’t find anywhere else including:

• How the Toyota management system boosts employee retention
• Three common misinterpretations of Toyota’s lean methodology
• Several real-world examples and a customer case study

The Toyota Production System is What Makes Toyota #1

Toyota has made the best-selling forklift in North America since 2002. That’s a long time to be number one. How do they do it? By following the Toyota Production System (TPS). 

What is Toyota Lean Management vs. The Toyota Production System? Toyota Lean Management (TLM) is a system that takes the principles of the Toyota Production System and applies them to other industries such as construction, supply chain, healthcare and of course manufacturing. I’ve yet to find a business that doesn’t benefit from the Toyota production management system.

Toyota Principles Improve Retention and Your Bottom Line

Improving efficiency and customer satisfaction are the best-known reasons for following Toyota’s lean management practices. Most people don't know it can also improve employee retention.

Hiring and retaining qualified workers was the number one challenge reported in MHI’s 2024 Top Supply Chain Challenges survey . The responses come from more than 2000 manufacturing and supply chain industry leaders from a wide range of industries. 

This isn’t the first year hiring and retention created major heartburn for supply chain operations, and it likely won’t be the last. If finding and keeping good people is something your organization struggles with, TLM can help with that too .

Here’s my version of the TPS house.

Why is it a House?

Most people use a house-shaped graphic to explain TPS because the function of a house is to preserve what’s inside . All the parts of the house interact with each other to protect what’s the business and its people — from the groundwork to the pillars to the roof.

The Groundwork

Respect for People, Long-Term Thinking and Continually Improve

Respect for People, Long-Term Thinking and Continually Improve are fundamental management philosophies that drive all policy and decision-making under the Toyota way.

Respect for People is not about being nice (although that is important). This principle is about creating a home-like atmosphere where everyone is encouraged and supported to reach their full potential. 

EXAMPLE: A supervisor has monthly one-on-one meetings with each associate to:

• Review personal performance
• Discuss issues with work processes
• Uncover opportunities for improvement

This mentor-mentee program develops people from within. Associates move into higher and higher positions so eventually, the people leading the company not only know the product but understand the work.

Respect for people also includes being mindful of how decisions in one department affect another. Uncoordinated decisions can negatively impact the customer.

EXAMPLE: If sales and marketing decide to have a big sale the weekend before Thanksgiving, the extra orders could overwhelm an already understaffed shipping department — creating delays for the customer and/or increased overtime expenses.

Last but not least, respect for people means providing stable employment. This leads us to the next fundamental principle… 

Long-Term Thinking — During COVID and the supply chain challenges that followed, many companies made the hard decision to lay off workers. I was in the training department at Raymond during this time.

Instead of letting workers go, we chose to strengthen the company by training associates and improving processes. We developed online training programs on various topics for hundreds of associates in various roles. These actions and this type of thinking goes back to the 1950s when Toyota decided to focus on building a strong, stable company for the long term. The economy will cycle up and down, but because our people are our most important asset, we must take care of them and protect them, even during economic downturns.

Short-term decisions, like letting experienced and tenured employees go, can improve the bottom line in the short term, but long term it hurts the business. All too often, corporate culture lives and dies on a quarterly report. This is short-sighted. When times are good, you have to squirrel money away in your war chest to protect the company and its people when times are bad .

Continually Improve – It is said in business, as in life, we are either growing or dying. A structured focus on continual improvement ( kaizen ) and challenging the status quo ensures a company stays competitive and growing.

EXAMPLE: We challenged the team who reconditioned our forklifts this year. At the beginning of the year, our lead time was 12 weeks. By mapping the process, improving flow and using a kaizen philosophy, we are now at 6 weeks. We are not satisfied with this improvement and have further challenged the team to cut the lead time in half again by the end of this year.  

The Foundation

Organize, Standardize, Optimize

The next level of the TPS house is all about creating an efficient work environment. It starts with a clean, orderly workspace where the next tool (or whatever the worker needs) is right there and not hidden in a pile of clutter.

If we don’t give people an organized workspace and standards to follow, we’re not helping them be successful. Even worse, we’re wasting their time. It goes back to respect for people.

EXAMPLE: The litmus test I used in the factory was to have a workstation set up with all the necessary tools. If I could take a tool away from the workstation and the operator couldn’t tell me within five seconds what was missing, that meant we had more work to do to. 

To be clear, it isn’t about telling people: you must do it this way or to make changes for the sake of making changes. The goal is to:

• Find the best way of doing things for the people who are doing the work
• Develop standards and best practices
• If a better way is found, everyone starts using that new way instead

That last bullet point is the principle of kaizen showing up again. Toyota Lean Management is an ongoing process where small, incremental changes result in measurable improvements to quality or reduced cost, cycle or delivery times.

FYI, we haven’t gotten to the actual Toyota Production System yet. The groundwork and the foundation are the basis for TPS. The system doesn’t work without establishing the groundwork and creating a solid foundation. 

Creating optimized workspaces and processes are deceptively simple assignments. It’s really easy to make work hard and it’s hard to make work easy. When you’re stuck in chaos it can be hard to see the way out. 

The foundation of TPS helps make work easy. Once an orderly, efficient system has been established, we work on the two pillars.

TPS Pillars: The Toyota Production System

Just in Time & Continuous Flow

The first pillar is all about having what you need, when you need it. Waste, in the form of wasted time or excess inventory, should be avoided. 

Back in 2021, Bloomberg and other news organizations excitedly reported how Toyota had abandoned its “just in time” philosophy because it started stockpiling computer chips. This is just one example of how Toyota principles are misunderstood by the Western world.

Misunderstanding #1 Here’s what most news outlets got wrong: After the earthquake and tsunami in 2011, Toyota reevaluated the lead time required for semiconductors and other parts. Their assessment revealed they were unprepared for a major shock to the supply chain, such a natural disaster. 

To ensure a continuous flow of chips to their factories, Toyota required suppliers to carry a 2-6 month supply of semiconductors. When COVID hit, the news reported Toyota was “stockpiling” chips when, in fact, the company was simply following a plan it had created ten years earlier. 

Our business training in the Western world is all about the balance sheet. Reducing inventory becomes a goal unto itself and that’s when things start to go badly. “Just in time” doesn’t mean “last minute.” It means keeping enough supply to ensure a continuous flow.

For Toyota, "just in time" meant a supply that could weather supply chain ups and downs. In 2021, when the chip shortage forced other automakers to stop their production lines, Toyota kept churning out vehicles and raised its earnings forecast by 54% . 

Visual Management & Zero Defects

EXAMPLE: Zero defects is pretty self-explanatory, but here’s an example of zero defects through visual management. The first thing Mr. Toyoda built was an automated loom for the textile industry. Occasionally, a thread would break and the operator wouldn’t see it. When this happened, the final product had to be thrown away. 

To fix the problem, Mr. Toyoda put a washer in the thread. If the thread broke, the washer fell off into the machine and it stopped. The operator could fix the problem without any waste (defective product). This also allowed one operator to oversee multiple machines.

Misunderstanding #2 Some people say Toyota Lean Management is basically the same as Six Sigma. I disagree. There are major differences between the two systems , but here’s a big one related to TPS Pillar Two: Six Sigma says you can have 3.4 defects per million operations. An “operation” is defined as a single action, such as attaching a wire or screwing a bolt. Building a jumbo jet requires millions of operations. Knowing 3.4 defects are permitted per million operations, would you rather fly on an airplane built by a company that follows Six Sigma principles or Toyota?

Another comparison you may have heard is one about a GM versus a Toyota factory. At GM, workers can get in trouble for stopping the line. At Toyota, it’s the opposite. If workers aren’t periodically stopping the line, managers get concerned. It goes back to the fundamental principles we talked about in the very beginning: respect for people and a culture of continuous improvement.

Toyota Lean Management Case Study

I worked with a hard cider manufacturer in upstate NY. The company was approaching its busy season and trying to build up its inventory to supply its distributor. Their “we gotta get this done” mentality caused them to overrun their facility.

A Foundational Problem The company thought they were following the “just in time” lean methodology. What they had was a mess. 

• Product and supplies were all over the place
• Equipment was haphazardly maintained
• They didn't have good standards on how to clean the kegs

A bottleneck in their system meant a new batch would get stuck behind the previous batch and unfinished inventory would pile up. Disorganization and stress led to unnecessary handling, damage and waste (wasted time and wasted product). 

After speaking to everyone who helped produce the cider, we created a list of best practices. Next, we helped the company organize, standardize and optimize the workspaces and procedures throughout their facility. With groundwork laid and a firm foundation in place, we were ready to move on to Pillars One and Two.

Guess what? The company had more than enough capacity. They didn’t need to build up inventory for their distributor. All they had to do was tame their operational chaos.

• Standardized practices saved time and improved product quality
• Clear processes and optimized workspaces helped everyone work more efficiently
• The company reclaimed space previously used to store inventory

Cider Batches Now Flow Continuously Once the bottleneck was subdued and equipment was kept in good working order, the cider company could run continuously with minimal downtime between batches. By staggering five batches to start over six weeks the company could meet customer demands.

The Core of the House: Its People

Grow People: Skills, Competence, Leaders

I added this circle in the center of the house (you won’t find it in other TPS house graphics) because I was fortunate to learn about Toyota’s lean management system directly from Toyota executives. 

The addition was inspired by a story I heard that really stuck in my mind. Mr. Onishi, Toyota’s president, visited a plant in Canada. He asked one of the plant managers to explain TPS. The manager described the house and the elements of zero defects, continuous improvement, etc. Mr. Onishi politely said, “It’s actually a people development process. We want to improve people’s skills and competence and grow them into leaders. Our goal is to promote people from within because they know the products, the customers and understand the work.”

The TPS Circle

Everything starts and ends with respect. 

Teamwork is about supporting the person who does the thing the customer is paying for. 

EXAMPLE: At SST, that means the technician working on a customer’s forklift.

Go and See — when a problem arises, the best way to find a solution is to observe the problem. 

EXAMPLE #1: At the forklift factory, units occasionally came off the line with the wrong counterweight. We observed the employee do everything right until one time he read the build sheet but chose the wrong counterweight. He was always on the go which created an opportunity for this mistake. By adding a simple step, stopping to highlight the weight info, the problem disappeared.

EXAMPLE #2: A warehouse thought they needed to buy more pallet rack and even had a rack consultant on-site while I was there. Turns out the company had plenty of rack space. They just needed to throw out three years of inventory they couldn't sell. The executive team almost wasted thousands of dollars on rack they didn’t need rather than take a hit on their balance sheet.

Challenge does not mean I had a challenging day because two associates didn’t show up for work. It means aiming for the stars and making it to the moon.

To generate significant improvements, you need an aggressive challenge and a team that’s committed to reaching a common goal. It changes your approach. To keep the space analogy going, consider all the technological innovations we enjoy that came from putting a man on the moon .

Misunderstanding #3 Toyota’s Production System strives for 100% customer satisfaction by eliminating wasteful activities. Many business leaders incorrectly believe running lean means using cheaper materials or reducing staff. By now you know this isn't the Toyota way. Building a strong house requires leaders who respect their people and think long-term. 

Companies that refuse to think beyond the bottom line will always struggle to stay competitive. Their short-term savings on cheap materials create long-term losses as customers become dissatisfied. They will also waste money hiring and training people who leave when they aren’t treated with respect. 

Sometimes I have to have a conversation with new clients about helping team members overcome challenges. When something goes wrong, some companies look for someone to blame (reprimand or fire) but that’s not the Toyota way.

Toyota’s approach focuses on fixing broken systems, not pointing fingers. We encourage leaders to challenge their team members to improve processes, but if the team member fails and gets fired after one try, how is that person’s replacement going to feel about taking on the same challenge?

The Roof of the TPS House

The roof protects the house and the people inside. A safe workplace that produces quality products at the lowest cost with the shortest delivery time in a good environment generates high morale and protects the business. By protecting the business, you protect the people inside and help them to grow into successful leaders. 

Request a Free Toyota Lean Management Consultation

If you’d like to reduce costs and turnover while increasing customer satisfaction, why not schedule a free consultation ? Toyota Lean Management has a low cost of implementation and is designed to help you get more out of your existing resources. 

During the initial consultation, we’ll talk about where your company is now versus where you’d like to be. The next steps depend on the individual client, but typically we’ll Go and See your space and look for:

• Inventory build-ups
• Excessive transportation
• Cluttered workspaces
• Unnecessary motion
• Producing more than what’s needed for the near-term
• Piles of defects

To learn more, contact us online or by phone (800) 226-2345.

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How Does Toyota Emphasize Teamwork Throughout The Organization

At Toyota, the emphasis is placed on teamwork as a function of personal self-actualization. Instead than being viewed as hotshots outside from the group, the model employees who act as teachers and mentors are seen as a mirror of the group in which leadership is dispersed. Teruo Suzuki, general manager of human resources, remarked, “Toyota is not the kind of organization where a chosen few shine. “It is deemed inappropriate to have a small group of people operate the business. Instead, Toyota relies on each employee to play to their strengths and show the company’s might as a whole.” []

A car is the result of the work of numerous individuals with various specialties. Watanabe remarked that “every single person is the principal player on the stage.” [] This mentality, which is founded on one of the founders’ beliefs outlined in Chapter 6 that everyone should win, is essential to up-and-in human resource management. Everyone benefits, but only to the extent that their efforts help the team as a whole, believing that strength results from the interaction of the many viewpoints. “On stage, everyone assumes a main role, but as a company, you want to set up a scenario in which one plus one results in three or even five, not two. I refer to that as a team “Watanabe continued by saying that the most crucial responsibility of managers is to foster this kind of teamwork. [] Toyota transcends the dichotomy by simultaneously promoting individual and team self-realization.

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In This Article...

What is the culture of the Toyota organization?

Since Taiichi Ohno established and improved the Toyota Production System (TPS) in the 1960s and 1970s, it has served as the global standard for Lean implementation. It has been the subject of countless books and articles, but the society that supports its survival has received less attention. Jeffrey Liker and Mike Hoseus’ book, Toyota Culture, describes how Toyota chooses, trains, and inspires employees to dedicate themselves to the task of creating high-quality goods. [Note: The keynote address for the 2020 Continuous Improvement Conference will be given by Hoseus, a former HR executive of Toyota’s plant in Kentucky.]

Toyota’s use of lean thinking is mostly focused on culture. According to the firm, respect for people and continual improvement are the cornerstones of the Toyota Way. The cultural values of challenge, kaizen, respect, teamwork, and Genchi Genbutsu serve as the foundation for these (go and see for yourself). However, the inclination in the West is to see Lean as a toolset that may achieve particular goals. This may be because of cultural differences between Eastern and Western societies. Although that strategy can lead to improvement, it will lose steam without the underlying convictions and principles to support it.

It is evident that Western society provides unique difficulties for embracing Toyota’s cultural precepts because of its strong individuality, short-term outlooks, and alternative cause-and-effect thinking. Toyota Culture investigates how Toyota exported its culture to the United States and other nations. Toyota intelligently realized that it needed to adapt to national cultures while maintaining its key principles of training people, problem resolution, standardization, and long-term thinking.

The book explores Toyota’s efforts to pick workers that are prone to cooperation and will fit in well with the culture. The principles of servant leadership, clear and open communication, a clean and safe workplace, collaborative problem resolution, and visual management are among those that managers are taught to consistently promote and teach. The factory floor is where HR managers are expected to spend the majority of their time.

The People Value Stream is an intriguing component of Toyota’s cultural thinking. This is similar to the Product Value Stream in that it distinguishes between value-added and non-value-added time; however, in this case, it defines value-added time as that which is used to recruit qualified candidates, train them to produce high-quality work, involve them in improvement efforts, and motivate them to continue learning and improving. How often does your business provide value over the course of an employee’s career, in this perspective? A corporation can create a future vision and a strategy to address the gaps once it has a clear understanding of its current status. By doing this, you may demonstrate how true it is that a company’s most valuable resource is its workforce.

Anyone researching how to build a work environment that can help a company improve faster than its competitors should read Toyota Culture.

Do you think Toyota would have succeeded without its culture of teamwork or do you think it has succeeded because of it?

Do you believe Toyota would have thrived without its culture of cooperation or that it has benefited from it?

To a significant extent, in my opinion, Toyota’s success may be attributed to its culture of teamwork. Without it, the business performance in the auto sector would not be this successful and exceptional. The ability to achieve notable performance in comparison to individual accomplishment is the central concept of team culture. Employees with various or special skills are assembled to form a work team in a culture that values teams. Together, people participate in initiatives using their individual strengths and talents to help each other operate more efficiently.

A multinational company like Toyota is strongly influenced by workforce diversity, which includes a variety of workers from many cultures. As a result, individuals can contribute a variety of values, viewpoints, and concepts to the team, which helps to foster fresh experiences and improve the team’s motivation and productivity.

Additionally, with a team-oriented culture, work is performed more effectively and efficiently since Toyota is able to employ all available resources efficiently and generate high-quality products, which contributed to Toyota’s current success. Toyota is able to precisely assign jobs depending on each employee’s abilities by controlling their workforce…show more information… The obligation to always work to the best of one’s abilities ought to be ingrained. The management or team members must also make sure that there are regular gatherings or meetings to keep the members informed, engaged, and motivated. This is done while having a clear end goal in mind, being committed and reliable. The rivalry between various teams can also result in competition. This naturally increases members’ motivation and focus, encouraging them to give their all.

What components of Toyota’s organizational structure are the most crucial?

Tech advancements and skilled labor are two essential components of Toyota’s success.

How has Toyota’s organizational structure changed?

Toyota’s organizational structure is divided into divisions. In 2013, this structure underwent extensive modifications. This was perceived as a reaction to the safety concerns and associated product recalls that began in 2009. Toyota had a strong, centralized worldwide hierarchy in its previous organizational design, which was more akin to a spoke-and-wheel structure. All of the important choices were made by the company’s headquarters in Japan. All communications had to go through the headquarters and were not shared between individual business units. The lengthy response times of this organizational structure to safety concerns, however, drew harsh criticism. Following the 2013 reorganization, Toyota’s new organizational structure now primarily consists of the following features:

• worldwide hierarchy
• Regional divisions
• divisions based on products

Worldwide Hierarchy. Toyota’s 2013 restructure did not alter its global hierarchy. However, the company has given regional and business unit heads more decision-making authority in the present organizational structure. In essence, Toyota decentralized its decision-making procedures. All business unit leaders do, however, report to the company’s worldwide headquarters in Japan.

Divisions by geography. Eight regional divisions make up Toyota’s new organizational structure (Japan, North America, Europe, East Asia and Oceania, China, Asia and Middle East, Africa, and Latin America and Caribbean). The corporate headquarters receives reports from each area manager. Toyota is able to adapt its goods and services to local market demands because to the organizational structure’s regional divisions.

divisions based on products. The collection of divisions based on products is another aspect of Toyota’s organizational structure. There are four divisions within the company: (a) Lexus International; (b) Toyota No. 1 for operations in North America, Europe, and Japan; (c) Toyota No. 2 for operations in all other regions; and (d) Unit Center, which is in charge of operations pertaining to engines, transmissions, and other related components. The organizational structure of Toyota has a characteristic that encourages the growth of brands and product lines.

How does Toyota cultivate its partners and employees?

In a general sense, Toyota sees respect for people and constant progress as the two pillars of its ideology. Respect for customers, respect for society, respect for suppliers and dealers, and respect for staff are all defined in the Toyota Way standards. According to the Toyota Way whitepaper, “Our Company is dependant on the support and happiness of customers, investors, workers, business partners, and host societies who benefit from the added value Toyota delivers. Our ability to provide consumers with ever-greater satisfaction by prioritizing their needs over all others is essential to our ongoing success.

Toyota pledges to produce value for all people. Based on multiple examples and historical facts, the dedication is sincere. The following commitments are listed:

• Effective utilization of time is required. “Just one hour is equal to one person’s lifetime, which is an accumulation of time. Employees give the company their valuable time, so we need to make the most of it; otherwise, we are squandering their life. (Eiji Toyoda, previous CEO of Toyota Motor Corporation)
• Relationships are by their very nature long-term. One of the authors, for instance, questioned why a particular joint venture in India only provided its local partner a 10% share. The partner was the correct response “terrific. The senior management also mentioned that the local partner would eventually be expected to make enough money to purchase a larger stake of the business.
• The goal is to make collaborations successful. (For an illustration, look at the discussions under Managing Suppliers.) Sending senior managers out for months to enhance operations is one of the many strategies Toyota uses. Respect is important, but it’s also important to make a commitment to adding value for everyone.

Respect plays a significant role in determining whether a connection is transactional (one-time interaction) or relational (many interactions over time). Improvement, which balances respect, is another factor that determines success. Consider it in this way: Relationships that are transactional are similar to encounters between complete strangers in New York City who hoot at one another from their cars. They exist and cause conflict. By making people apprehensive of getting too close to another car, that very friction may help such interactions operate successfully. Honking at someone you know well and will see every day, such as a coworker or fellow student, is unacceptable when connections last a long time. Relational relationships can’t put up with rudeness or contempt, but respect needs to be tempered with demands for progress and involvement in the joint enterprise. If not, there will be less motivation to keep up with system changes and environmental changes.

There is also another implication of this focus. A person or an organization can be seen as improving through continuous improvement. As per The Toyota Way: “We think that each person possesses the creative ability to independently pursue their own personal objectives. We respect each team member’s values, skills, aptitude, perspective, and drive. The Toyota Way paper quotes Taiichi Ohno13, the inventor of the Toyota Production System, as saying “Working with subordinates involves a wit and wisdom competition.

Toyota workers are instructed to approach problems as though they were two levels higher in the hierarchy. Instead of regulations, Toyota prefers to provide broad objectives or ambiguous instructions. In our opinion, that strategy is utilized to cultivate the habit of evaluating and establishing one’s own goals. The exercise is essential to understanding how the system functions. A preferable strategy would be to inquire about the best way to provide drinking water rather than, for instance, requesting a provider to decrease the frequency of water delivery to a workplace.

Toyota evaluates managers based on five different types of subjective standards. One of them highlights how outcomes were attained, while the others focus on the manager’s gained respect and trust. According to Takeuchi, Osono, and Shimizu, desirable traits include modesty, a desire to mentor other employees, a readiness to listen and learn from others, passion for creating continual improvements, comfort working in teams, and the capacity to solve problems rapidly. Since speedy fixes to issues don’t appear consistent with modesty and a readiness to listen and learn, it is obvious that these standards are not only ambiguous but also rather incongruous. They offer much of opportunity for personal growth.

By pushing them to grow both within Toyota and in the wider network of partners and suppliers, the system aspires to create extraordinary individuals and teams that will adhere to the philosophy and comprehend the system. To help its suppliers understand and accept the company’s way, Toyota employs a variety of strategies (see Toyota Managing Suppliers). Ward and coauthors and Tae-Hoon15 explore the various degrees of connections that Toyota has with various suppliers in two excellent pieces. These partnerships range from suppliers receiving practically total design flexibility to suppliers receiving Toyota’s complete design. Once the design is complete, regardless of the connection that is used, the production processes always seem to adhere to the more meticulously crafted Toyota Way principles.

What does that strategy mean, exactly? Using the framework created above, we can say that different suppliers may have learned the Toyota system at varying levels of depth. That offers an alternative perspective on strategic sourcing. Using the term “strategic sourcing” (or “supplier scorecards”), we refer to two sourcing-related concepts:

• Prior to choosing a supplier, enormous effort is put forth, but unless the same level of effort (or more) is maintained, the supplier has a tendency to slacken.
• From a strategic consideration point of view, it is hard to maintain the same level of contact and relationship with all suppliers. Some may even be more significant than others.

The level of a supplier’s knowledge with both the buyer’s and the seller’s organizational structure and organizational procedures may be a third factor based on the Toyota Way. As a result, whether or not it is strategic, the supplier’s level of expertise and development is another factor.

Womack discusses several aspects of lean production in his weekly emails. The following anecdote was included in his most recent email from him: “Many years ago, when I first visited Toyota in Japan, I had dinner with the purchasing director and asked how he could be sure that Toyota was getting good performance from its suppliers when only two suppliers were used for a given category of need and when Toyota relied on target pricing rather than supplier bids. How do you know you aren’t being taken advantage of, I enquired? He said, “Because I know everythingevery detail of every value-creating processrunning from raw materials at suppliers through Toyota’s operations,” after giving an incredulous look. That’s what I do.

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Resilience Tested: Toyota Crisis Management Case Study

Crisis management is organization’s ability to navigate through challenging times. 

The renowned Japanese automaker Toyota faced such challenge which shook the automotive industry and put a dent in the previously pristine reputation of the brand.

The Toyota crisis, characterized by sudden acceleration issues in some of its vehicles, serves as a compelling case study for examining the importance of effective crisis management. 

Toyota crisis management case study gives background of the crisis, analyze Toyota’s initial response, explore their crisis management strategy, evaluate its effectiveness, and draw valuable lessons from this pivotal event. 

By understanding how Toyota tackled this crisis, we can glean insights that will help organizations better prepare for and respond to similar challenges in the future.

Let’s start reading

Brief history of Toyota as a company

Toyota, one of the world’s largest automobile manufacturers, has a rich history that spans over eight decades. The company was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937 as a spinoff of his father’s textile machinery business. 

Initially, Toyota focused on producing automatic looms, but Kiichiro had a vision to expand into the automotive industry. Inspired by a trip to the United States and Europe, he saw the potential for automobiles to transform society and decided to steer the company in that direction.

In 1936, Toyota built its first prototype car, the A1, and in 1937, they officially established the Toyota Motor Corporation. The company faced numerous challenges in its early years, including the disruption caused by World War II, which halted production.

However, Toyota persisted and resumed operations after the war, embarking on a journey that would eventually lead to global recognition.

Toyota’s breakthrough came in the 1960s with the introduction of the compact and affordable Toyota Corolla, which quickly gained popularity worldwide. This success laid the foundation for Toyota’s reputation for producing reliable, fuel-efficient, and high-quality vehicles.

Throughout the following decades, Toyota expanded its product lineup, launching models like the Camry, Prius (the world’s first mass-produced hybrid car), and the Land Cruiser, among others.

Toyota’s commitment to continuous improvement and efficiency led to the development and implementation of the Toyota Production System (TPS), often referred to as “lean manufacturing.” TPS revolutionized the automotive industry by minimizing waste, improving productivity, and enhancing quality.

Over the years, Toyota successfully implemented many change initiatives.

By the turn of the 21st century, Toyota had firmly established itself as a global automotive powerhouse, consistently ranking among the top automakers in terms of sales volume.

However, the company would soon face a significant challenge in the form of the sudden acceleration crisis, which tested Toyota’s crisis management capabilities and had far-reaching implications for the brand.

Description of the sudden acceleration crisis

The sudden acceleration crisis was a pivotal event in Toyota’s history, which unfolded in the late 2000s and early 2010s. It involved a series of incidents where Toyota vehicles experienced unintended acceleration, leading to accidents, injuries, and even fatalities. Reports emerged of vehicles accelerating uncontrollably, despite drivers attempting to apply the brakes or shift into neutral.

The crisis gained significant media attention and scrutiny , as it posed serious safety concerns for Toyota customers and raised questions about the company’s manufacturing processes and quality control. The issue affected a wide range of Toyota models, including popular ones such as the Camry, Corolla, and Prius.

Investigations revealed that the unintended acceleration was attributed to various factors. One prominent cause was a design flaw in the accelerator pedal assembly, where the pedals could become trapped or stuck in a partially depressed position. Additionally, electronic throttle control systems were also identified as potential contributors to the issue.

The sudden acceleration crisis had severe consequences for Toyota. It tarnished the company’s reputation for reliability and safety, and public trust in the brand was significantly eroded. Toyota faced a wave of lawsuits, regulatory investigations, and recalls, as it scrambled to address the issue and restore consumer confidence.

The crisis prompted Toyota to launch one of the largest recalls in automotive history, affecting millions of vehicles worldwide. The company took steps to redesign and replace the faulty accelerator pedals and improve the electronic throttle control systems to prevent future incidents. Toyota also faced criticism for its initial response, with accusations of a lack of transparency and timely communication with the public.

The sudden acceleration crisis served as a wake-up call for Toyota, highlighting the importance of effective crisis management and the need for proactive measures to address safety concerns promptly.

Toyota crisis management case study helps us to understand how company’s respond to this crisis and set a precedent for handling future challenges in the years to come.

Timeline of events leading up to the crisis

To understand the timeline of events leading up to the sudden acceleration crisis at Toyota, let’s explore the key milestones:

• Early 2000s: Reports of unintended acceleration incidents begin to surface, with some drivers claiming their Toyota vehicles experienced sudden and uncontrolled acceleration. These incidents, although relatively isolated, raised concerns among consumers.
• August 2009: A tragic incident occurs in California when a Lexus ES 350, a Toyota brand, accelerates uncontrollably, resulting in a high-speed crash that claims the lives of four people. The incident receives significant media attention, highlighting the potential dangers of unintended acceleration.
• September 2009: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) launches an investigation into the sudden acceleration issue in Toyota vehicles. The probe focuses on floor mat entrapment as a possible cause.
• November 2009: Toyota announces a voluntary recall of approximately 4.2 million vehicles due to the risk of floor mat entrapment causing unintended acceleration. The recall affects several popular models, including the Camry and Prius.
• January 2010: Toyota expands the recall to an additional 2.3 million vehicles, citing concerns over sticking accelerator pedals. This brings the total number of recalled vehicles to nearly 6 million.
• February 2010: In a highly publicized event, Toyota halts sales of eight of its models affected by the accelerator pedal recall, causing a significant disruption to its production and sales.
• February 2010: The U.S. government launches a formal investigation into the safety issues related to unintended acceleration in Toyota vehicles. Congressional hearings are held, during which Toyota executives are questioned about the company’s handling of the crisis.
• April 2010: Toyota faces a $16.4 million fine from the NHTSA for failing to promptly notify the agency about the accelerator pedal defect, violating federal safety regulations.
• Late 2010 and 2011: Toyota faces a wave of lawsuits from affected customers seeking compensation for injuries, deaths, and vehicle damages caused by unintended acceleration incidents.
• 2012 onwards: Toyota continues to address the sudden acceleration crisis by implementing various measures, including improving quality control processes, enhancing communication with regulators and customers, and establishing an independent quality advisory panel. 

Toyota’s initial denial and dismissal of the problem

During the early stages of the sudden acceleration crisis, one notable aspect was Toyota’s initial response, which involved a degree of denial and dismissal of the problem. This response contributed to the escalation of the crisis and further eroded public trust in the company. Let’s delve into Toyota’s initial reaction to the issue:

• Downplaying the Problem: In the initial stages, Toyota downplayed the reports of unintended acceleration incidents, attributing them to driver error or mechanical issues. The company maintained that their vehicles were safe and reliable, asserting that the incidents were isolated and not indicative of a systemic problem.
• Lack of Transparency: Toyota faced criticism for its perceived lack of transparency regarding the issue. The company was accused of withholding information and failing to disclose potential safety risks to the public and regulatory agencies promptly. This lack of transparency fueled suspicions and raised questions about the company’s commitment to addressing the problem.
• Slow Response: Toyota’s response to the growing concerns regarding unintended acceleration was relatively slow, leading to accusations of negligence. Critics argued that the company should have acted more swiftly and decisively to investigate and address the issue before it escalated into a full-blown crisis.
• Reluctance to Acknowledge Defects: Initially, Toyota resisted the notion that there were inherent defects in their vehicles that could lead to unintended acceleration. The company’s reluctance to accept responsibility and acknowledge the problem further strained its relationship with consumers, regulators, and the media.
• Impact on Customer Trust: Toyota’s initial denial and dismissal of the problem had a significant impact on customer trust. As more incidents were reported and investigations progressed, customers began to question the integrity of the brand and its commitment to safety. This led to a decline in sales and a tarnishing of Toyota’s once-sterling reputation for reliability.

Lack of transparency and communication with the public

One critical aspect of Toyota’s initial response to the sudden acceleration crisis was the perceived lack of transparency and ineffective communication with the public. This deficiency in open and timely communication further intensified the crisis and eroded trust in the company. Let’s explore the key issues related to transparency and communication:

• Delayed Public Announcement: Toyota faced criticism for the delay in publicly acknowledging the safety concerns surrounding unintended acceleration. As reports of incidents surfaced and investigations commenced, there was a perception that Toyota withheld information and failed to promptly address the issue. This lack of transparency fueled public skepticism and eroded confidence in the company.
• Insufficient Explanation: When Toyota did address the sudden acceleration issue, their explanations and communications were often vague and lacking in detail. Customers and the public were left with unanswered questions and a sense that the company was not providing comprehensive information about the problem and its resolution.
• Ineffective Recall Communication: Toyota’s communication regarding the recalls linked to unintended acceleration was criticized for its inadequacy. Some customers reported confusion and frustration with the recall process, including unclear instructions and delays in obtaining necessary repairs. This lack of clarity and efficiency in communicating recall information further strained the company’s relationship with its customers.
• Limited Engagement with Stakeholders: Toyota’s engagement with key stakeholders, such as regulatory bodies, industry experts, and affected customers, was perceived as insufficient. The company’s communication efforts were criticized for being reactive rather than proactive, lacking a comprehensive plan to engage stakeholders and address their concerns promptly.
• Perception of Cover-up: The lack of transparency and ineffective communication led to a perception that Toyota was attempting to cover up the severity of the sudden acceleration issue. This perception further damaged the company’s credibility and fueled public skepticism about the company’s commitment to consumer safety.

Impact on the company’s reputation and customer trust

The sudden acceleration crisis had a profound impact on Toyota’s reputation and customer trust, which were previously regarded as key strengths of the company. Let’s explore the repercussions of the crisis on these crucial aspects:

• Reputation Damage: Toyota’s reputation as a manufacturer of reliable and safe vehicles took a significant hit due to the sudden acceleration crisis. The widespread media coverage of incidents and recalls associated with unintended acceleration eroded the perception of Toyota’s quality and reliability. The crisis challenged the long-standing perception of Toyota as a leader in automotive excellence.
• Loss of Customer Trust: The crisis shattered the trust that customers had placed in Toyota. The incidents of unintended acceleration and the subsequent recalls created doubts about the safety of Toyota vehicles. Customers who had been loyal to the brand for years felt betrayed and concerned about the potential risks associated with owning or purchasing a Toyota vehicle.
• Sales Decline: The erosion of customer trust and the negative publicity surrounding the sudden acceleration crisis resulted in a significant decline in sales for Toyota. Consumers were hesitant to buy Toyota vehicles, leading to a loss of market share. Competitors seized the opportunity to capitalize on Toyota’s weakened position and gain a foothold in the market.
• Legal Consequences: Toyota faced a wave of lawsuits from individuals and families affected by incidents related to unintended acceleration. These lawsuits not only had financial implications but also further damaged the company’s reputation as it faced allegations of negligence and failure to ensure the safety of its vehicles.
• Regulatory Scrutiny: The sudden acceleration crisis brought increased regulatory scrutiny upon Toyota. Government agencies, such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), conducted investigations into the issue, which further dented the company’s reputation. Toyota had to cooperate with regulatory bodies and demonstrate its commitment to rectifying the problems to restore trust.
• Long-Term Brand Perception: The sudden acceleration crisis left a lasting impression on how Toyota is perceived by consumers. Despite the company’s efforts to address the issue and improve safety measures, the crisis served as a reminder that even renowned brands can face significant challenges. It highlighted the importance of transparency, accountability, and a proactive approach to crisis management.

Recognition and acceptance of the crisis

In the face of mounting evidence and public scrutiny, Toyota eventually recognized and accepted the severity of the sudden acceleration crisis. The company’s acknowledgment of the crisis marked a significant turning point in their approach to addressing the issue. Let’s explore how Toyota recognized and accepted the crisis:

• Admitting the Problem: As the number of reported incidents increased and investigations progressed, Toyota eventually acknowledged that there was a problem with unintended acceleration in some of their vehicles. This admission was a crucial step towards recognizing the crisis and accepting the need for immediate action.
• Apology and Responsibility: Toyota’s top executives, including the company’s President at the time, issued public apologies for the safety issues and the negative impact on customers. The company took responsibility for the unintended acceleration problem, acknowledging that there were defects in their vehicles and accepting accountability for the consequences.
• Collaboration with Authorities: Toyota actively collaborated with regulatory bodies, such as the NHTSA, and other government agencies involved in investigating the sudden acceleration issue. This collaboration demonstrated a commitment to resolving the crisis and addressing the concerns of the authorities.
• Openness to Independent Investigation: In an effort to ensure transparency and unbiased assessment of the crisis, Toyota welcomed independent investigations into the unintended acceleration incidents. The company engaged external experts and formed advisory panels to evaluate their manufacturing processes, safety systems, and quality control measures.
• Recall and Repair Initiatives: Toyota initiated a massive recall campaign to address the safety issues associated with unintended acceleration. The company implemented comprehensive repair programs aimed at fixing the defects and improving the safety features in affected vehicles. These initiatives were crucial in demonstrating Toyota’s commitment to rectifying the problems and ensuring customer safety.
• Internal Process Evaluation : Toyota conducted internal evaluations and reviews of their manufacturing processes and quality control systems. They identified areas for improvement and implemented changes to prevent similar issues from arising in the future. This internal introspection showed a dedication to learning from the crisis and strengthening their processes.

Appointment of crisis management team

In response to the sudden acceleration crisis, Toyota recognized the need for a dedicated crisis management team to effectively handle the situation. The appointment of such a team was crucial in coordinating the company’s response, managing communications, and implementing appropriate strategies to address the crisis.

Toyota appointed experienced and senior executives to lead the crisis management team. These individuals had a deep understanding of the company’s operations, values, and stakeholder relationships. They were entrusted with making critical decisions and guiding the organization through the crisis.

The crisis management team comprised representatives from various functions and departments within Toyota, ensuring a comprehensive approach to addressing the crisis. Members included executives from engineering, manufacturing, quality control, legal, public relations, and other relevant areas. This cross-functional representation facilitated a holistic understanding of the issues and enabled effective collaboration.

Implementation of recall and repair programs

In response to the sudden acceleration crisis, Toyota implemented extensive recall and repair programs to address the safety concerns associated with unintended acceleration. These programs aimed to rectify the defects, enhance the safety features, and restore customer confidence.

Toyota identified the models and production years that were potentially affected by unintended acceleration issues. This involved a thorough examination of reported incidents, investigations, and collaboration with regulatory agencies. By pinpointing the specific vehicles at risk, Toyota could direct their efforts towards addressing the problem efficiently.

Toyota launched a comprehensive communication campaign to reach out to affected customers. The company sent notifications via mail, email, and other channels to inform them about the recall and repair programs. The communication highlighted the potential risks, steps to take, and the importance of addressing the issue promptly.

Toyota actively engaged its dealership network to support the recall and repair initiatives. Dealerships were provided with detailed information, training, and necessary resources to assist customers in scheduling appointments, conducting inspections, and performing the required repairs. This collaboration between the company and its dealerships aimed to ensure a seamless and efficient recall process.

Toyota developed a structured repair process to address the unintended acceleration issue in the affected vehicles. This involved inspecting and, if necessary, replacing or modifying components such as the accelerator pedals, floor mats, or electronic control systems. The company ensured an adequate supply of replacement parts to minimize delays and facilitate timely repairs.

Collaboration with regulatory bodies and industry experts

During the sudden acceleration crisis, Toyota recognized the importance of collaborating with regulatory bodies and industry experts to address the safety concerns and restore confidence in their vehicles. This collaboration involved working closely with relevant agencies and seeking external expertise to investigate the issue and implement necessary improvements.

Let’s delve into Toyota’s collaboration with regulatory bodies and industry experts:

• Regulatory Engagement: Toyota actively engaged with regulatory bodies, such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in the United States and other similar agencies globally. The company cooperated with these organizations by providing them with relevant data, participating in investigations, and adhering to their guidelines and recommendations. This collaboration aimed to ensure a thorough and unbiased assessment of the sudden acceleration issue.
• Joint Investigations: Toyota collaborated with regulatory bodies in conducting joint investigations into the unintended acceleration incidents. These investigations involved sharing data, conducting extensive testing, and evaluating potential causes and contributing factors. By working together with the regulatory authorities, Toyota aimed to gain a comprehensive understanding of the problem and find effective solutions.
• Advisory Panels and External Experts: Toyota sought the expertise of external industry experts and formed advisory panels to provide independent assessments of the sudden acceleration issue. These panels consisted of experienced engineers, scientists, and safety specialists who analyzed the data, evaluated the vehicle systems, and offered recommendations for improvement. Their insights and recommendations helped guide Toyota’s response and ensure a thorough and impartial evaluation.
• Safety Standards Compliance: Toyota collaborated with regulatory bodies to ensure compliance with safety standards and regulations. The company actively participated in discussions and consultations to contribute to the development of robust safety standards for the automotive industry. By actively engaging with regulatory bodies, Toyota aimed to demonstrate its commitment to maintaining high safety standards and fostering an environment of continuous improvement.
• Sharing Best Practices: Toyota collaborated with industry peers and participated in industry forums and conferences to share best practices and learn from others’ experiences. By engaging with other automotive manufacturers, Toyota aimed to gain insights into safety practices, quality control measures, and crisis management strategies. This exchange of knowledge and collaboration helped Toyota strengthen their approach to safety and crisis management.

Final Words 

Toyota crisis management case study serves as a valuable reminder to all automobiles companies on managing crisis. The sudden acceleration crisis presented a significant challenge for Toyota, testing the company’s crisis management capabilities and resilience. While Toyota demonstrated strengths in their crisis management strategy, such as a swift response, transparent communication, and a customer-focused approach, they also faced weaknesses and shortcomings. Initial denial, lack of transparency, and communication issues hampered their crisis response.

The crisis had profound financial consequences for Toyota, including costs associated with recalls, repairs, legal settlements, fines, and a decline in market value. Legal settlements were reached to address claims from affected customers, shareholders, and other stakeholders seeking compensation for damages and losses. The crisis also resulted in reputation damage that required significant efforts to rebuild trust and restore the company’s standing.

About The Author

Tahir Abbas

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The Diversity and Reality of Kaizen in Toyota

• First Online: 06 October 2018

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• Shumpei Iwao 5  

Part of the book series: Evolutionary Economics and Social Complexity Science ((EESCS,volume 12))

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In the existing literature, kaizen (continuous improvement) has often been conceived of as the accumulation of similarly small, mutually independent, incremental process innovations that are conducted by workers, work teams, and their leaders. This chapter attempts to observe continuous improvement in a certain factory for a certain period and to show the diversity and reality of kaizen in Toyota. Through longitudinal observations, seven case studies are examined, showing that (1) kaizen consists of a series of innovations with various scales, such as number of stakeholders, amount of investment, and economic outcomes (e.g., cost reduction effect); (2) kaizen sometimes induces small changes in product design and affects the organizational activities of production design as a small-scale product innovation; and (3) kaizen activities sometimes influence other kaizen activities. With regard to these characteristics of kaizen, this study implies that (4) kaizen management needs organizational design. For example, in Toyota’s case, not only work teams but also product/process design engineers contribute to kaizen, and shop floor engineers play a vital role in coordinating between shop floors and engineering departments on the basis of the staff-in-line structure of organizations.

This chapter originally appeared as an article in Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review (EIER) Vol. 14, No. 1 (Iwao 2017 ).

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Iwao, S. (2018). The Diversity and Reality of Kaizen in Toyota. In: Fujimoto, T., Ikuine, F. (eds) Industrial Competitiveness and Design Evolution. Evolutionary Economics and Social Complexity Science, vol 12. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-55145-4_9

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7.2 Case in Point: Toyota Struggles With Organizational Structure

The Toad – Labadie Toyota Building – CC BY-NC 2.0.

Toyota Motor Corporation (TYO: 7203) has often been referred to as the gold standard of the automotive industry. In the first quarter of 2007, Toyota (NYSE: TM) overtook General Motors Corporation in sales for the first time as the top automotive manufacturer in the world. Toyota reached success in part because of its exceptional reputation for quality and customer care. Despite the global recession and the tough economic times that American auto companies such as General Motors and Chrysler faced in 2009, Toyota enjoyed profits of $16.7 billion and sales growth of 6% that year. However, late 2009 and early 2010 witnessed Toyota’s recall of 8 million vehicles due to unintended acceleration. How could this happen to a company known for quality and structured to solve problems as soon as they arise? To examine this further, one has to understand about the Toyota Production System (TPS).

TPS is built on the principles of “just-in-time” production. In other words, raw materials and supplies are delivered to the assembly line exactly at the time they are to be used. This system has little room for slack resources, emphasizes the importance of efficiency on the part of employees, and minimizes wasted resources. TPS gives power to the employees on the front lines. Assembly line workers are empowered to pull a cord and stop the manufacturing line when they see a problem.

However, during the 1990s, Toyota began to experience rapid growth and expansion. With this success, the organization became more defensive and protective of information. Expansion strained resources across the organization and slowed response time. Toyota’s CEO, Akio Toyoda, the grandson of its founder, has conceded, “Quite frankly, I fear the pace at which we have grown may have been too quick.”

Vehicle recalls are not new to Toyota; after defects were found in the company’s Lexus model in 1989, Toyota created teams to solve the issues quickly, and in some cases the company went to customers’ homes to collect the cars. The question on many people’s minds is, how could a company whose success was built on its reputation for quality have had such failures? What is all the more puzzling is that brake problems in vehicles became apparent in 2009, but only after being confronted by United States transportation secretary Ray LaHood did Toyota begin issuing recalls in the United States. And during the early months of the crisis, Toyota’s top leaders were all but missing from public sight.

The organizational structure of Toyota may give us some insight into the handling of this crisis and ideas for the most effective way for Toyota to move forward. A conflict such as this has the ability to paralyze productivity but if dealt with constructively and effectively, can present opportunities for learning and improvement. Companies such as Toyota that have a rigid corporate culture and a hierarchy of seniority are at risk of reacting to external threats slowly. It is not uncommon that individuals feel reluctant to pass bad news up the chain within a family company such as Toyota. Toyota’s board of directors is composed of 29 Japanese men, all of whom are Toyota insiders. As a result of its centralized power structure, authority is not generally delegated within the company; all U.S. executives are assigned a Japanese boss to mentor them, and no Toyota executive in the United States is authorized to issue a recall. Most information flow is one-way, back to Japan where decisions are made.

Will Toyota turn its recall into an opportunity for increased participation for its international manufacturers? Will decentralization and increased transparency occur? Only time will tell.

Case written based on information from Accelerating into trouble. (2010, February 11). Economist . Retrieved March 8, 2010, from http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15498249 ; Dickson, D. (2010, February 10). Toyota’s bumps began with race for growth. Washington Times , p. 1; Maynard, M., Tabuchi, H., Bradsher, K., & Parris, M. (2010, February 7). Toyota has pattern of slow response on safety issues. New York Times , p. 1; Simon, B. (2010, February 24). LaHood voices concerns over Toyota culture. Financial Times . Retrieved March 10, 2010, from http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/11708d7c-20d7-11df-b920-00144feab49a.html ; Werhane, P., & Moriarty, B. (2009). Moral imagination and management decision making. Business Roundtable Institute for Corporate Ethics . Retrieved April 30, 2010, from http://www.corporate-ethics.org/pdf/moral_imagination.pdf ; Atlman, A. (2010, February 24). Congress puts Toyota (and Toyoda) in the hot seat. Time . Retrieved March 11, 2010, from http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1967654,00.html .

Discussion Questions

• What changes in the organizing facet of the P-O-L-C framework might you make at Toyota to prevent future mishaps like the massive recalls related to brake and accelerator failures?
• Do you think Toyota’s organizational structure and norms are explicitly formalized in rules, or do the norms seem to be more inherent in the culture of the organization?
• What are the pros and cons of Toyota’s structure?
• What elements of business would you suggest remain the same and what elements might need revising?
• What are the most important elements of Toyota’s organizational structure?

Principles of Management Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How Toyota uses Beaconforce to add a human touch to productivity

4 ottobre, 2022, introduction the solution the advantages results.

Toyota is one of the world’s largest and best- known automobile manufacturing businesses employing over 360,000 people. The company’s vision is to “lead the way to the future of mobility by developing the safest and most responsible ways of transporting people”. Toyota’s two main values include respect for people and continuous improvement. While many people know about Toyota’s original manufacturing philosophy called the Toyota Production System (TPS) which aims to eliminate waste and achieve the best possible efficiency - widely known as a “lean” or “just-in-time” system, only a few know the principle of TPS is the concept of jidoka - a Japanese term that can be translated as “ automation with a human touch ”. The aim of jidoka is to spot problems or faults in the production process and take prompt action to prevent problems from happening again while maintaining quality and productivity. Toyota had long known the value of the human touch and how respect for their people empowered continuous improvement. Toyota Motor Italia offered employees a survey relating to their involvement but, with such a large workforce this data could only be collected every two years. Toyota realized that if they could find a way to frequently check on their people’s engagement and motivation the company would be able to identify areas of improvement, define action plans and measure their impact in a more agile way . Aware of the partial effectiveness of the two-year employee engagement survey, Toyota Motor Italia realized the need to implement a tool that would help them support employees on a daily basis. The company commissioned Gartner to recommend tools that would: Be easily integrated into their people’s daily workflows Collect data in real-time Involve line managers in a more effective way Facilitate meaningful and productive conversations Provide HR with clear metrics Support the Toyota values of respect for people and continuous improvement

After a thorough analysis of available technologies, Toyota Motor Italia selected Beaconforce as the system most aligned with the principles of TPS. With these principles in mind, Beaconforce implemented methods taking into account several factors. Firstly, by spearheading the redesign of Toyota’s HR reports with a strong focus on the fact that Toyota has always been committed to putting their people’s needs first . By leveraging the Beaconforce Stress Diagram to identify the teams and employees under high stress . And, in order to help employees in the stress zone, HR created a clear escalation process that involves managers first, and top management after if the situation doesn’t improve. And finally, through Beaconforce, the monitoring of organizational and team engagement in a more structured way, adding objective data to performance reviews or other qualitative approaches . On a quarterly basis, among all the Beaconforce key indicators, HR identifies the main areas of improvement and the metrics that require more attention and then presents an action plan to top management.

“After doing an analysis with Gartner of the different options out there, we couldn’t find any other technology that allowed us to manage, monitor, and cultivate intrinsic motivation like Beaconforce allowed us to do in real-time.”

Giuseppe de Nichilo

HR, Corporate Planning & Facilities General Manager at Toyota

Changing what they measure, directed leaders’ attention to the real drivers of sustainable success . With the identification of teams and employees that were under stress, Toyota’s HR team was able to help employees at risk of burnout. Some of these action plans have included: Providing dedicated training to the employees after identifying a gap in their knowledge or skills. Guiding managers on reassessments of work allocation within teams. Personalized coaching sessions when the issue is not directly related to the day-to-day activity.


The results of implementing beaconforce exceeded toyota motor italia’s expectations. within the first few months, results included: an adoption rate of 98% (greater acceptance than any previous technology). employee stress was reduced by 32% turnover rate reduction by 65% (from 2.84% to 0.95%, data relating to the period: february 2019 - may 2022). greater sensitivity in conversations between managers and workers real-time reporting of employee engagement and motivation agile business improvement . in many ways, beconforce is the embodiment of “automation with a human touch" but instead of looking for problems or faults in the production process, beaconforce uses technology such as artificial intelligence (ai) to identify sentiments within the workforce to instigate conversations with managers that can prevent stress, burnout or other problems occurring., see the files we have prepared for you, success stories.

How Tirreno Power Lowers Turnover & Retains Top Talent

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Jul. 13, 2018

Toyota Celebrates Teamwork and Inclusivity at the Special Olympics Unified Cup Partnership Reinforces Mobility Company's Belief in a Barrier-Free World

Tokyo, Japan, July 13, 2018―Next week, Toyota will further demonstrate its global commitment to inclusion as the presenting sponsor of the 2018 Special Olympics Unified Cup in Chicago , held from July 17-20. Both Special Olympics and Toyota share the same goal in creating a society without discrimination through sports and a commitment to a sustainable society through mobility.

Toyota has a long history with sports that goes back over 80 years, when the company first opened for business and at the same time organized a track and field team. Since then, the principles learned through participating in sports―teamwork and continuous improvement―have guided the company both internally and externally.

These values also carry over into Toyota's evolution, as it has moved from producing looms, to cars, and now, a wide range of mobility solutions. As a company dedicated to helping people move across town, across a room, and through life, Toyota believes in an inclusive, barrier-free world, where everyone is free to be the best we can be. This desire to inspire others and challenge currently-held values for the company's first-ever global initiative, "Start Your Impossible", which was launched last year and highlights humility, hard work, and overcoming challenges―all themes that carry over into team sports.

Special Olympics is focused on creating an inclusive community around the world through sport. Through their "unified sports", everyone, regardless of intellectual disabilities, plays together while understanding and respecting each individual's character and differences.

"During my school days, I was completely devoted to field hockey and learned the importance of fighting as part of "one team"," said Akio Toyoda , president of Toyota Motor Corporation. "In Special Olympics, sport is not the only challenge; even daily life can be a battle to people with intellectual disabilities and those who support them in everyday life. A truly inclusive society, like the one being represented by 'Unified Sports,' is one where people with intellectual disabilities are not just supported by those charged with helping them, but where people with and without disabilities live side by side, grow up together, and learn from each other. It is this type of society that Toyota wants to contribute to. Our partnership with Special Olympics has given Toyota a teammate, and we will challenge this quest together."

Regionally, Toyota has been involved with local Special Olympics chapters since 1986 and sponsored the 2015 Special Olympics World Games in Los Angeles. In 2017, Toyota entered in to an agreement with Special Olympics International to become a Global Gold Partner through 2022. In addition, Toyota is also a Global Unified Sports Partner through 2020, and a Special Olympics Unified Cup Partner for the duration of the Chicago games.

"Special Olympics is excited to partner with Toyota and showcase the power of inclusion through sport on the global stage," said CEO Mary Davis . "The Special Olympics Unified Cup presented by Toyota will unite athletes from all over the world and demonstrate that when we train and compete together, we break down barriers and change the game for inclusion."

About Special Olympics

Special Olympics is a global inclusion movement using sport, health, education and leadership programs every day around the world to end discrimination against and empower people with intellectual disabilities. Founded in 1968, and celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year, the Special Olympics movement has grown to more than 5 million athletes and Unified partners in more than 170 countries . With the support of more than 1 million coaches and volunteers, Special Olympics delivers 32 Olympic-type sports and over 108,000 games and competitions throughout the year. Special Olympics is supported by individuals, foundations and partners, including Bank of America, the Christmas Records Trust, The Coca-Cola Company, ESPN, Essilor Vision Foundation, the Golisano Foundation, the Law Enforcement Torch Run® for Special Olympics, Lions Clubs International, Microsoft, Safilo Group, TOYOTA, United Airlines, and The Walt Disney Company. Click here for a full list of partners. Engage with us on: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and our blog on Medium. Learn more at www.SpecialOlympics.org and Toyota's Special Olympics website .

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