Questions 1 Which schools of management thought are illustra

Solution

It is Total Quality Management that is illustrated in the case.

Total quality management (TQM) is a philosophy or approach to management that focuses on managing the entire organization to deliver quality goods and services to customers. This approach to management was implemented in Japan after World War II and was a major factor in their economic renaissance. TQM has at least four major elements. Employee involvement is essential in preventing quality problems before they occur. A customer focus means that the organization must attempt to determine customer needs and wants and deliver products and services that address them.

Benchmarking means that the organization is always seeking out other organizations that perform a function or process more effectively and using them as a standard, or benchmark, to judge their own performance. The organization will also attempt to adapt or improve the processes used by other companies. Finally, a philosophy of continuous improvement means that the organization is committed to incremental changes and improvements over time in all areas of the organization. TQM has been implemented by many companies worldwide and appears to have fostered performance improvements in many organizations. Perhaps the best-known proponent of this school of management was W. Edwards Deming.

Customers want

Safety features
Reliability
Fuel economy
Horsepower
Styling
Comfort
Price
Handling and
Environmental impact

The most desired quality characteristics in a car are Cruise Control, Anti-lock brakes (ABS) and Airbags, all together.

Statistics and data don\'t lie. Toyota is one of the most profitable and stable companies in the world. It is said that Toyota can continue to pay its employees for the next 10 years in cash if the company went under. In regards to quality Toyota is 1:10 defect verses Fords 5:10 ratio. I do think, in my opinion, Ford makes good trucks. As for any other product it would be Found On Road Dead...just a note, I recall reading on how Ford executives ridiculed the design of the Taurus a few years back. They said the cars front fascia looks like Homer Simpson. Toyota is better, toyota vehicles last ALOT longer and are more durable.

After Hurricane Katrina the U.S. experienced several years of increasingly unstable, and generally rising, fuel prices. Throw in a global economic meltdown in 2008, and by 2010 all three of those monster SUVs were dead, along with large truck and SUV sales in general. Over that same period sales of small cars and hybrids grew, with a little extra shove from the government’s Cash for Clunkers program in the summer of 2009. No single model better represented this shift in shopper behavior than Toyota’s Prius. U.S. sales of the Prius doubled the year Katrina hit, from 54,000 to 108,000, before hitting their highest number ever in 2006 at 181,000. Since then sales have hovered around 140,000, though they are down 11 percent so far this year. In fact overall hybrid sales have dropped, and while Toyota gets credit for consistently selling over 100,000 Prii a year (a number that dwarfs every other hybrid offered in the U.S.) the automaker’s own, similarly sized Corolla stomps the Prius, averaging approximately double that hybrid’s sales at around 280,000 units a year.