Strategic plans of Forbes International Top Ten companies

Toyota Motors are the leaders of the world automobile industry and is a multinational company with production facilities across the world. The present CEO is Mr. Fujio Cho and the company was ranked fourth by Forbes in 2002. Toyota Motors is a great colossus employing 246 thousand employees the world over. (Forbes.com, 2010) The company has its own system of management that is claimed to be the best and is known popularly as the 'Toyota way'. The success of the company is largely attributed to the people management being carried out at the company. Toyota's labor management and the company policies are based on the Japanese culture and climate. (Kono, 2001)

Japanese organizations regard human values and have great concern for the welfare of the employees. The Japanese believe in a lifetime employment system, and at Toyota, the employees are loyal to the organization. Japanese HRM policies and practices are the core of Japanese companies and this core is also transferred to the foreign subsidiaries. In Japan, HRM practices strongly reflect characteristics of Japanese culture. Some such concepts are the: lifetime or long-term employment and wages based on seniority and the company-dominated unions. (Kono, 2001)

Now let us discuss about the problems faced by the company. Recently the Toyota way of kaizen philosophy has failed in the electronics of complicated engines. There are technical management problems and the customer trust on a global scale stand to be lost if there are more mishaps in the manufacture or design. Recall problems was prevalent in all automobile companies like Ford and GM. Toyota needs to consider the way the electronic programming of cars is showing up flaws. (Ohmae, 2010)

Toyota had to recall a lot of vehicles on account of manufacturing faults, something that must never have happened considering the history of the Toyota model of production. It can be seen that when the company began the process of the organization of its assembly lines back in 1990, the system came to be called the Toyota production system or lean production system. Later on Toyotism II was created to increase job attractiveness to the Japanese workers where the workforce is diminishing. The process also generated an economic advantage in reducing cash flow to automation and investments. Thus the reengineered system is in place to ensure employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. This is achieved by a balance between lean production process and fat plant and equipment design. (Dosi, et al., 2001)

The current problem is that from 1990 to the end of 2010 there has not been any fault in the manufacture or Toyota's automobile design and engineering. The system was created to compete globally. While there was a shortage of labor Toyota had to move to the international markets. This required the building of 'human friendly' assembly plants, and high assembly automation ratios mainly for ergonomic purposes. (Dosi, et al., 2001)

Some how this system seems to be tottering and therefore Toyota need to reconsider the way the manufacturing process goes on. Toyota's engineering problem can actually be a management problem. According to Daniel Diermeier, Toyota faces loss of $2 billion and may also be hauled before the U.S. Congress over its vehicle recalls which necessitated the apology of the CEO Akio Toyoda, who announced a task force that would deal with quality issues. The recall of vehicles as a result of faulty manufacture is seen more of a management problem, that is, the quality is not being cared for at Toyota today. The company must see that there is greater focus on quality, safety, and also take measures to see that the current model is changed somewhat to suit the changing and complex needs of the automobile world and changing technology. (Kellogg School of Management Faculty Members, 2010)