Team Work

Assignment Question

Teamwroking has been viewed as an effective way of improving the performance effectiveness, and quality of working life, in organization.

Select an organization that is important to you, preferably, relating to your work environment. Critically analyze and discus the actual practice of how Teamwroking is implemented in the organization. What teamworking approach you would recommend for the management to enhance teamworking effectiveness in the organization selected?

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Mr. Ebrahim Mohammed Kanoo from Toyota Board who provided me with insights and information on Toyota motor cooperation and Dr. Zakaroyia Ali for his valuable insight provided which helped me in preparing this paper.

Table of Contents

Introduction ..................................................................... 5

Competition ..................................................................... 6

Total Quality Management .................................................... 8

Team Working Theory .........................................................11

Conclusion .......................................................................14

References........................................................................15

Introduction

This essay examines the literature on teamwork and analyses how teams can enhance the performance of the company. Various theories on teams and team building are studied with a particular emphasis on how teams can make the organisation more competitive. The essay examines Toyota Japanese automakers that gained profitability and penetrated the world market based on its team working and team building characteristics.

The Toyota Motor Corporation is based on Japan and the company specialises in selling cars, trucks and SUVs worldwide. The company has manufacturing facilities in 26 countries. The company markets their vehicles under the Toyota, Lexus and Daihatsu brands. Toyota accompanies its automotive business with a large business portfolio in financial services, including sales finance, vehicle insurance and credit cards. It also has an extensive presence in telecommunications through a subsidiary that is a provider of cellular services in Japan. Other diversified businesses include industrial equipment, prefabricated housing and leisure boats. Toyota uses the Japanese Philosophy of Total Quality Management (TQM) to create an effective production system that relies heavily on teamwork and collaboration in the organisation.

Competition

Toyota has many differentiated vehicles, cars, and it operated internationally with many other automakers. The main competition of the company comes from other Japanese automakers such as Nissan, Mitsubishi and Honda all of whom operate in the in the same market as Toyota. The core strength of the company has been its focus on the customer and quality and its international presence.

The Mitsubishi company developed a method for analysing customer needs, resolving those needs that conflict and then driving the needs into the product development and design stage. They were faced with the problem of defining in detail the customer needs for their shipbuilding company. The problem was that when customer needs were not clearly defined it was possible for the design to proceed and production to begin based on an incorrect assessment. When the correct needs are defined late in the project, the required changes are prohibitively expensive and cause delays. Spending the extra time at the front end of the project to systematically evaluate the needs enables the design, procurement and manufacture to proceed more smoothly. This avoids disruption, saves money and time.

Honda penetrated the US Market through strategic expansion, which they did very carefully. To their surprise, they were able to penetrate the US market with their 50cc motorbike, which was repositioned in the market and sold through sports stores. After that they went on to build the heavier bike, which was aimed at the traditional "leather back" Consumer. Expansion into America led to Honda securing a large part of the market share in the US. At Honda like Toyota there is a highly organic structure, with little formalization of behaviour; job specialization based on formal training; a tendency to group the specialists in functional units for housekeeping purposes but to deploy them in small, market-based project teams to do their work; a reliance on liaison devices to encourage mutual adjustment, the key coordinating mechanism, within and between these teams. Mintzberg (1996).

Total Quality Management

The Japanese philosophy that is adopted by Japanese automakers is that of TQM (Total Quality Management). The concept of quality circles was introduced during 1970s which formed six to eight people together from all areas of production to get together every week to address all production related issues. This approach involved everyone in the quality management of the production process. Toyota uses this concept by encouraging team building, which encourages commitment of all employees in the organisation. Guest

(1987) It is through this team building that the organisation has gained a competitive advantage in the competitive automobile market.

TQM provides a philosophy of doing everything right in the first attempt; if this strategy is adopted for the long term it can help, a company become more efficient and profitable. The main principle of TQM is to incorporate quality in all areas of company operations, which includes production, purchasing, development, financial controls and HRM. Toyota has adopted this strategy and has focused in maintaining quality and then lowering costs. The focus of quality by Toyota is one reason why the company has been so profitable. Deming (1986)

TQM encourages the use of quality as the main approach to solve all problems in the company. This strategy has encouraged