Knowledge Management at Toyota

This presentation provides an overview of knowledge management at Toyota, including its efforts in knowledge creation, dissemination, and preservation. It discusses the special characteristics of knowledge management at Toyota, such as knowledge sharing and transfer to employees. The presentation also explores the Toyota Way principles and how they support knowledge management. Additionally, it compares Toyota's learning organization with Honda's and examines the tacit and explicit knowledge approaches. Finally, it highlights the advantages and disadvantages of these approaches and suggests improvements for Toyota's knowledge management strategies.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
TOYOTA

WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT?
“Any structured activity that improves an
organization’s capacity to acquire, share,
and utilize knowledge in ways that
improves its survival and success”
(Oyemomi et al., 2016)

TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION
 Founded in 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda
 Japanese automobile manufacturing company (Moritaa and Moritab,
2015)
 Headquartered in Aichi, Japan
 Have 338, 875 employees all around the globe
 In 2012, it is the largest automobile manufacturer (by production)
(Hasegawa, 2018)

TOYOTA’S EFFORTS IN TERMS OF KNOWLEDGE CREATION,
DISSEMINATION AND PRESERVATION
Knowledge
Creation Spiral

a) Toyota is focused on research, innovation and development.
b) It has developed Toyota University (Du, Yalcinkaya & Bstieler, 2016)
c) The organisational culture of Toyota is supportive of the knowledge
sharing and the conversion of tacit knowledge into the explicit
knowledge.
d) Adopted knowledge management (KM) systems for better
performance (TPS- Toyota Production System).

SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT AT TOYOTA

KNOWLEDGE SHARING
Physical Environment Database Software Dynamic learning
process
a) Large open space
b) Workers are likely to
exchange ideas and
share information
a) It records all its
problems, best practices
and operations
b) It is used as the
database and a library
by a continuous
reporting from the part
of the employees
a) The company points out
the fact that the people
could learn from one
another
b) It does not have any
control over all the
activities.

TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE TO TOYOTA’S EMPLOYEES
 Establishing Toyota University for training the employees
and the dealers
 Training new employees by working with the highly trained
managers and the groups of skilled workers to make them
better understand the “Toyota Way” (Jayamaha et al.,
2014)

HOW TOYOTA WAY PRINCIPLES HELP KM AT TOYOTA?
4p model of Toyota way

TO WHAT EXTENT DOES JAPANESE CULTURE CONTRIBUTE TO
KM AT TOYOTA
 Knowledge sharing culture
 Family type management system
 Implies collectivistic society with male domination
 Very strict rules and laws during work
 Long-term orientation
 Continuous improvement and learning
 Respect for people
 Teamwork
 Mutual trust

COMPARISON BETWEEN TOYOTA AND HONDA (IN TERMS OF
LEARNING ORGANIZATION )
TOYOTA’s Learning Organisation HONDA’s Learning Organisation
The learning organisation of Toyota has 3
key elements:
a) Identifying the root causes and
developing the “countermeasures”.
b) Using hansei
c) Utilising the policy deployment.
a) It is translating new knowledge into
new ways of behaving.
b) It has actively managed its learning
process to ensure that it is continuous
and well planned (Quaye et al., 2015).
c) It implements new technology
d) It focuses on teamwork

TACIT AND EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE APPROACH
Tacit knowledge approach Explicit knowledge approach
a) Analysis of the problems and
performance in productivity and
quality at the end of every week for
one to two hours (Chuang, Jackson &
Jiang, 2016)
b) Proposing “countermeasures” for
correcting the identified issues and
discussing the results.
c) In Quality Circle group settings the
employee make personal interactions.
a) Documenting the task in a way that
every team of workers and every
individual worker is asked for
performing

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF TACIT KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT APPROACHES.
Advantages Disadvantages
a) Relatively inexpensive and easy to
start
b) The employees might respond well for
recognition of the claimed knowledge
c) It is more likely to develop interest in
the process of Knowledge
Management.
a) The individuals might not have the
knowledge that they generally claim
to have
b) The organisation might loose the
important knowledge if the important
people of the organisation leave
c) Brain drain
d) Moving the knowledge by the people
is both time consuming and costly

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF EXPLICIT
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT APPROACHES.
Advantages Disadvantages
a) It is very easy to transfer by
technology
b) Possible to discover the deficiency in
the knowledge
c) It could be analysed, discussed and
review.
a) Best practise is one of the important
concepts in the application of the
explicit knowledge
b) Evaluation of the knowledge needs
experts
c) Requires high motivation for
stimulating the contribution
d) The codification of knowledge require
cost and time.

CONCLUSION
 knowledge based approach has helped Toyota in managing its core
competencies
 Toyota needs to improve its current Knowledge Management
strategies and practices. It needs to adopt interrogative questions
and assessments procedure, effective communication, adoption of
more creativity, creation of the learning networks and some
effective evaluation system.

REFERENCES:
 Oyemomi, O., Liu, S., Neaga, I., & Alkhuraiji, A. (2016). How knowledge sharing and business process contribute to
organizational performance: Using the fsQCA approach. Journal of Business Research, 69(11), 5222-5227.
 Moritaa, M., & Moritab, S. (2015). Karakuri Ningyo Dolls and Toyota Commemorative Museum as Resources of Industrial
Tourism. Sociology, 5(9), 728-736.
 Hasegawa, T. (2018). Recent projects and initiatives at Toyota Archives. Comma, 2016(1-2), 149-154.
 Du, S., Yalcinkaya, G., & Bstieler, L. (2016). Sustainability, social media driven open innovation, and new product
development performance. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 33, 55-71.
 Jayamaha, N. P., Wagner, J. P., Grigg, N. P., Campbell-Allen, N. M., & Harvie, W. (2014). Testing a theoretical model
underlying the ‘Toyota Way’–an empirical study involving a large global sample of Toyota facilities. International Journal
of Production Research, 52(14), 4332-4350.
 Turner, E., Norman-Conchas, G., O’Dell, D., Weis, A., Agha, R., Barahona, K., ... & Niu, C. (2017). CHINA, COSTA RICA,
JAPAN, LEBANON, PAKISTAN, SAUDI ARABIA, THE UAE, AND THE USA: CUTOMER SERVICE AND CULUTRAL
DIFFERENCES. Copyright 2017 by Institute for Global Business Research, Nashville, TN, USA, 182.
 Quaye, I., Osei, A., Sarbah, A., & Abrokwah, E. (2015). The applicability of the learning school model of strategy
formulation (Strategy Formulation as an Emergent Process). Open Journal of Business and Management, 3(02), 135.
 Chuang, C. H., Jackson, S. E., & Jiang, Y. (2016). Can knowledge-intensive teamwork be managed? Examining the roles of
HRM systems, leadership, and tacit knowledge. Journal of management, 42(2), 524-554.

THANK YOU