Revitalizing Toyota's quality control department through reorganization and leadership

Toyota

Quality Control at Toyota

There are several key issues that need to be addressed in order to turn around Toyota's quality control department, from restoring morale and commitment to making pragmatic changes to processes and communication structures in order to directly facilitate more effective operations. In order to successfully carry out the position of Vice President and contribute to the development and progress of the Toyota company as a whole, careful consideration of these issues, projections of necessary and potential changes, and methods for achieving these changes must be undertaken. The following paragraphs detail six area of specific concern or required attention that relate to the task at hand, containing suggestions for the steps that should be taken in order to turn this department around and the organizational/interpersonal approaches that will best ease and facilitate the implementation of these steps.

Goals

Short-term goals for the quality control division must include an improvement in morale within six months, as measured through both qualitative (interviews, meetings, surveys, etc.) and quantitative (retention rates, complaint/issue frequency, etc.) means. New communications processes should also be in place within a year. Long-term goals include a greater degree of integration with other departments within three years, as measured by survey responses and communication gaps/lapses/lag times, as well as the design and implementation of a new promotion/raise system that more accurately and meaningfully reflects performance.

Assistance from Other Departments

Quality control, perhaps more than any other department within Toyota (or any other company), is entirely dependent on other departments for the development of its knowledge and the carrying out of its tasks. The relationship between manufacturing and quality control is especially important, and there will be a great reliance on the manufacturing departments for current information, feedback, and receptivity to instructions and other communications. Relationships with other departments will also be highly important.

Training Initiative

Low morale and an outgoing vice president that was removed for cause suggests that there are some significant changes required in how the quality control department at Toyota goes about doing its business, and how the individuals within the department feel about their occupations and their role within the company as a whole. Training initiatives that focus on team building, problem solving, and hierarchical communication will most likely be especially effective in the current situation observed in the company, providing a solid foundation for alleviating other problems when they arise and even forestalling the emergence of such problems through proactive communication and collaboration. Many of these training exercises and classes should be carried out on a company-wide basis to ensure effective ongoing and continuous communication between the various departments at Toyota.

Challenges

As with any new venture, which this certainly counts as, there will be certain significant challenges faced in the carrying out of the duties and tasks necessary to achieve overall organizational success. Specific challenges that are expected to become issues immediately upon taking the position include mistrust on the part of employees and other vice presidents/department heads due to residual impacts of the previous VP's performance as well as challenges involved in learning others' specific expectations of the role being taken in the company. Keeping an open mind and an understanding attitude will help to overcome these challenges.

Leadership Traits for Directors

The three primary traits that will be sought in the seven directors reporting to the Vice President of Quality Control at Toyota are inspirational ability, energy, and integrity. While there are of course many other traits that are also highly desirable, these three are believed to be the most essential for the current context of the company due to the specific impacts they can have on individual performance and overall organizational cohesion (Segil, 2002). Inspirational ability will help to motivate workers that have been identified as having low morale and a lower level of successful performance under the outgoing vice president, and the ability to motivate is generally a highly desirable and even necessary trait for large organizations hoping to achieve lasting and meaningful growth and progress (Segil, 2002). Energy is required especially in the current era of the company due to the amount of resources, time, and focus it will take to make the necessary changes within the company -- such changes are far more energy intensive than simply maintaining standard practices and levels of progress.

Finally, integrity is necessary in order to ensure that the politics often in place in the corporate world do not hinder or damage attempts to build a more successful and better-integrated company. Extending far beyond simple honesty, integrity means that the directors will be acting in the best interests of their department and the company rather than from personal motives (Segil, 2002). Through these traits and the described actions, the quality control department and the company as a whole can be brought back to the top level of performance it has so long enjoyed.