The Future of Work-Toyota-Free-Samples for Students-Myassignment

Question: Discuss about the Toyota Motor Corporation. Answer: Report Scenario: Toyota motor Corporation (Toyota) was integrated in the year 1937 and since then has been conducting business within the automotive industry, however Toyota burst into scene in the year 1926. The company in the recent years has also been performing in the financial sector along with certain other industries. Toyota has grown enough, proven by the fact that its vehicles are being sold in around 190 countries. The main markets for its automobiles are North America, Europe, Asia and Japan. Toyota boasts of a diversified set of products for their target customers, which takes into account Toyota automobiles, Marine products, Lexus automobiles, Welcab series, spare parts, engines and other accessories (www.toyota-global.com 2017). Its Lexus series comprises of luxury sedans that are mainly for the richer section of the community. On the other hand, its Welcab series from the house of Toyota are being built or designed for the elderly people along with the people suffering from any sort of disabilities. The company is also in the habit of making yachts and other accessories required for the automobiles. This states that Toyota has been reaching a wider market segment and lessening the risks associated to the market through product diversification. Toyota makes use of strategies like low cost and differentiation in gaining a competitive advantage over their rivals in the industry of automotive (www.toyota-global.com 2017). Toyota is able to target a larger market for the fact that they manufacture something for everyone. Its four wheel drive trucks along with SUVs are mainly for outdoors or for the people living in regions that encounters severe conditions of weather. There are hybrid models like Prius for customers believing in eco-friendly products along with the standard generalized cars for regular use. It offers vehicles for all the price ranges, like low priced Toyota Corolla and the high priced luxury SUVs. Toyota presently focuses on two segmentation processes; one being demographic and the other psychographic segmentation. In case of demographic, Toyota has been targeting the size of the family with this segment taking in the upper middle high income group. For this section, Toyota manufactures cars like the Land Cruiser, Camry, and Parado, designed for the people who have the zeal and the purchasing power to buy these cars (Law 2017). In case of psychographic, Toyota targets the high income group who boasts a sporty attitude and is generally satisfied with cars like Toyota Fortuner and Toyota Altis Sport model. These cars help in developing and enlivening their passion and sense for sports. Technological unemployment: The influence of the automation technologies has been felt throughout the global economy. The number of industrial robots globally has augmented in rapid process over the past few years. The diminishing prices of the robots that has the ability in operating all day without disruption, makes them a cost-competitive factor with the human workforce. As these technologies are becoming cheaper along with being more capable and widespread, more applications of such sort would be found within an economy in the coming years. Technological unemployment outlines the structural unemployment wherein the economy structure alters with modification in the demand of manpower for the introduction of new machinery, technology that is time saving and developed production methods (David 2015). The modern trend towards an augmented automation curtails in part from the great recession, forcing many of the businesses to function with fewer number of workers. However, after the growth recommenced, businesses continued with their process of automation in their operations instead of hiring extra workers. This reverberate a trend among the technological companies that accepts enormous valuations with comparatively fewer workers. Experts have been disagreeing on the impact size that automation of technologies would be having on the workforce. While some have been warning of confounding unemployment, others have pointed out that technology might create job opportunities that would employ the workers once displaced. If automation technologies like the artificial intelligence and robots make jobs less protected, there needs to be ways of delivering benefits outside the employment factor. Technological unemployment in automotive industry: The automobile industry has been stated to be the pillar of the world economy, one of the key drivers of the macroeconomic development, solidity and technological encroachment in both the developed and the developing countries (Litman 2014). Automotive has been contributing to various key dimensions of the nation building process like creating government revenue, producing the economic development, encouraging the improvement of people and nurturing of the innovation and RD. Robots have begun taking over an assortment of functions from the human beings at the car plants in the emerging economies. Volkswagen has positioned 120 robots in one of its plants in Pune, India while Hyundai Motor India, a secondary body of the Korean car manufacturer has around 400 in its Chennai plant. The overall body shop, the majority of the paint shop along with the final assembly line parts are presently been automated. Robots have been performing a varied range from welding to the foundry process to the laser functions. Globally companies like Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors and Royal Enfield have been augmenting the automation levels, especially in the section of body shop. In many of the ways, the ascendancy of the robots in the manufacturing of automobile was an inevitable factor. As cars are becoming more stylish, the process of manufacturing is becoming a complex affair. Factors like safety and quality have turned out to be much rigorous. Consumers have started becoming more sensitive and conscious about safety issues, demanding extra features but unwilling to negotiate in the price aspect. Manufacturers have been facing the challenge in providing products that are competitively priced related to safety and superiority, yet being suitably differentiating in meeting the consumer needs to a specific region. For keeping up with the rate, auto manufacturers had no choice but to opt for automation. The demand of automation has gone up for factors like sharp styling and convention of new materials for safety and crash needs (Walsh 2017). Some of this complex functions are not possible for humans to perform. The body equipments of the cars are going lighter with every passing day that signifies operations like welding needs greater accuracy for developing the cars stability at higher speeds. For a car body shell, welding at definite point is awfully difficult for the humans to reach into. Heinz Etzmuss, head of the manufacturing at Volkswagen stated that humanly it is not feasible to be precise in this process of in-line measurement. The solution for this is to turn to the arms of a robot, which escalated on the cameras of high-resolution, taking images from several angles and completing the task. Safety is another matter of concern. Jobs like roof laser welding are perilous for the human workforce. Robots have been assisting the car makers in reducing the wastage and saving of the costs. In the area of sealant application, only the correct material amount gets used as for automation. Carmakers have witnessed a 50 per cent reduction in the consumption of materials when they substituted the underbody appliance of sealer from human manual labor to automation. Hyundai, in Asia has been automating functions such as the sealer applications, operations related to pre-paint cleaning and loading of the panels of body. A programmed robot makes sure a pristine clean car through the exactness and repeatability factor. Replacing the humans in the plant areas have been saving money through reduction in climatic need and control for air current. However, according to Kearns of Ford, human interface is dependable, adaptive and adjoins the craftsmanship element to any finished creation. Even if the plants are being robotized, organizations would still require augmenting the technical ability of people. Despite many of its benefits, automation still remains a costly factor. Robots come at a costly rate, so many of the companies are not in much hurry in substituting their human labors though it is stated a robot can do the job of three technical workers. Robots might do the job of three technical workers, but these robots still needs to be maintained through the help of highly skilled labor force. Automation in Toyota: Since its inception, Toyota has been able to expand its business sphere in including the textile mechanism, equipments for material handling and solutions for logistics. In getting there Toyota implemented the theory of lean manufacturing, emphasizing on the value increase factor while diminishing the waste (Walsh 2017). It is the customer who decides what is important, which of the wastes is being identified as overproduction, defective parts and so on. Toyota has also been striving hard in ensuring that the skills of the workers are not being wasted at any point of time that would lessen their satisfaction level for the jobs in hand along with their motivation factor which would decrease their competence (Miller 2013). Integrating automation into the process of Toyota has guaranteed that the waste amount has diminished considerably. Since 1970s, Toyota has been developing industrial robots and initiating them in their manufacturing process for improving the quality factor and reducing costs. Robots are mainly used by Toyota in their process of welding, painting and assembling. The plant of Toyota car manufacturing amalgamates automated conducted tuggers and automated steered carts in extending their deal of lean manufacturing. This effective subassembly system of production facilitates the automatic vehicles in being directed through a traffic control system that investigates the location of all the vehicles in real time process. Once these products are being transported to drop-off sites, the parts supply robot processes in the workstations. Once they are being finished, a robot heaps a flow rack which is being picked up for an AGC in delivering to the next terminal to be fit in the vehicle body. The Toyota Automated Guided Container Transport System mechanize the transport work in storing yards and leverages the software technology in helping optimizing the operations of loading. It helps in lessening the idle time of container trailers and cranes, thus increasing the productivity. Frey and Osbornes Findings: In the year 2013, economist from Oxford Carl Frey along with an expert of Machine Learning Michael Osborne found that that the chances are high of engineers finding ways in automating 47 per cent of the jobs in the United States, and that too possibly within a decades time. The most significant factor about their findings was that unlike the prior revolutions in technology, this new one would have an impact on all the workers across the continuum, ranging from the white-collar jobs to the low-skilled ones. The probable scale of the disruption generated by the developments of technology, like the artificial intelligence, big data and machine learning requires the governments to thing profoundly on the ways they can help alleviate the risk and fully exploit the opportunities (Frey and Osborne 2017). Fred and Osborne has also argued the fact that these technological advancement, creative destruction like the technological unemployment resulting in workers seeking fresh jobs after being laid off, in all likelihood will increase that has been termed as capitalization consequence. The latter outcome refers to the growth enrichment factor and the job-creation effect of the technological advancements that on previous occasions have been actually outweighing the labor saving effect of technology (Bechtsis et al. 2017). Since the present speed with which the humans have been becoming probable obsolete is high and increasing all the time. An attempt for upgrading the skills and education might no longer be adequate to win Race Against the Machines. Toyotas take on automation and recent trends: Carmakers have been embracing automation and replacing the same with humans for years. However, Toyota is that one company that has been going slow on this matter. They have been consciously taking steps backward and replacing the automated machines in some of their factories in Japan and generating heavy lines of production of manual nature teamed with humans. The choice of Toyota has been stated as an unconventional one, the fact being Japan boasts the most number of industrial robots globally, having an estimated 3, 09,400 of them (Boenzi et al. 2015). Other than Japan, only South Korea has more ratio of robots as compared to humans. The present strategy of Toyota boasts of two key aspects. First, it desires to make sure that the workers fully appreciate the work they have been doing as an alternative of supplying parts into machines and being in helpless situation when the machine breaks down. Secondly, it indulges itself in figuring out the ways in making processes of higher quality and more effective in the long run. The organization worries about the fact that automation would signify the fact that Toyota has too many of the average skill workers and not enough masters and craftsmen. So far, people reinstating the robots at over 100 of the workspaces condensed waste in the crankshaft production by a margin of 10 per cent, assisting in shortening the line of production. Others have improved their axel production and cut down on costs for framework parts. According to Mitsuru Kawai, a project lead working for Toyota states that Toyota cannot simply depend on machines that are only good in repeating a task over and over again. He went on to add that for being the master of the machine, one needs to have the skill and required knowledge for teaching the machine. The manual lines of Toyota are a redeploy on Kaizen, or in other words continuous enhancement along with Monozukuri, which is fundamentally the art in giving good shape to things (Noble 2017). It is generally a process of re-commitment to the ideas of management at the back the decade old Toyota Production System. In one of their plants in Honsha, workers have been physically turning, slanting and hammering o f the metal into crankshafts- a procedure that was previously been automated. Toyota believes in the fact that machines have enormous ability in doing things and that too at low cost, however people having the required experience of conducting tasks themselves, brings craftsmanship, impending into the design development and being consistent on quality. Toyota has found out that the pursuit in reducing the human element can end up making the overall method less competent. The strategy of Toyota might come at the outlay of expansion. While approaching for more premeditated, manual manufacturing, Toyota is not structuring new factories for three long years, a drawback for Toyota in its endeavor in pushing for humans over robots (Mller, Vette and Scholer 2014). However in the battle between quality and quantity, humans would still top the group for the time being. Toyota is still the global leader in the segment of automaker in terms of sales. Smart organizations have been able to find that if they position effectiveness above the smooth organizational conversion, they may find their efforts for automation failing miserably in their process of improving the performance of companies. Time to Change: The real key for Toyota would be to enlarge a competitive advantage in the age of increasing automation, striking the precise balance between people and robots along with the evidence proliferate that is not essentially the automated factories that ascend to the top. At Toyota, craftsmen having adequate knowledge and skill were referred to as gods for their capability in making just anything from scrape (Drauz 2014). However, during the previous few years the firms did not aimed in increasing its celestial workmen and lessening the robotic labor in the longer run, but have done the opposite of that. In the recent years, a mounting chorale lauds the most recent iteration of automation and robots, however warns of the ever growing structural unemployment for technology. This reason of joblessness is not of recurring nature, but in the long-term, it would become endemic and would be hard to overturn. Toyota still hold on to the belief that people are still much essential in the industrial development. Companies need to understand that machines do not get better without the inventiveness of human beings, but even that obligation might not be lasting forever. Artificial intelligence is being pushed into sphere once aloof for human beings only. Leading car companies like Toyota have entirely automated their body and paint shops. These sort of jobs require replication and steady feature and often displays safety and ergonomic confronts. Working in these sort of areas would expose the workers to a multitude of chemicals of unhealthy nature, making these jobs the prototypical ones planne d for robots. On the other hand Toyota would do well to position its human workforce in handling the assembly lines which deals with various options on fresh models from elevation airbags for building in vacuum cleaners. For handling of the present day customized vehicles having 55,000 parts for the multiplicity of electronics and other whistles provided on autos, requiring the human workers elasticity that can regulate to the changing requirements and innovations without exclusive reprogramming. Toyota also needs to evaluate the cost it would incur in maintaining its human workforce and in maintaining the automated machines. For instance, one of Toyotas European auto plant have invested 7-8 million euros in technology that would mount the windshields of cars in the assembly line, substituting the people who once did the work. It has been found that the new machine has been consistent in pertaining to the holding of the windshields in place, but the maintenance cost and workers for handling such c omplicated technology is twice the people employed for establishing the windshields in the first place. The company needs to understand where to automate and where to do tasks manually in saving costs. The ITO framework of Toyota is stated to be one of the efficient ones in the industry of automobile. The process starts with the contribution and procurement of the ingredients of manufacturing. The input takes in the investment of capital and the procurement amount form suppliers. The process of output or as stated otherwise as the transfer is an implicit cylinder through which the overall development is being passed. References: Bechtsis, D., Tsolakis, N., Vlachos, D. and Iakovou, E., 2017. 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Marchant, G.E., Stevens, Y.A. and Hennessy, J.M., 2014. Technology, unemployment policy options: Navigating the transition to a better world.Technology,24(1). Miller, K.W., 2013. Technology, Unemployment, and Power.IT Professional,15(6), pp.10-11. Mller, R., Vette, M. and Scholer, M., 2014. Inspector RobotA new collaborative testing system designed for the automotive final assembly line.Assembly Automation,34(4), pp.370-378. Noble, D., 2017.Forces of production: A social history of industrial automation. Routledge. References Toyota motor corporation global website. (2017).TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION GLOBAL WEBSITE. [online] Available at: https://www.toyota-global.com/ [Accessed 16 Aug. 2017]. Walsh, T., 2017. Expert and Non-Expert Opinion about Technological Unemployment.arXiv preprint arXiv:1706.06906.