Operations Management in Modern Organizations

This assignment explores the crucial role of operations management in contemporary organizations. It highlights how effective leadership, motivated employees, and robust operational processes contribute to enhanced decision-making, productivity, and overall organizational success. The text emphasizes the impact of knowledge management, big data analytics, and sustainability on modern operations.

Management & Operations

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1 Introduction of Toyota and its management structure.............................................................1
2 Definition and roles of both managers and leaders, with the difference between management
and leadership..............................................................................................................................2
3 Analyze different roles of management and leadership in application to different
organizational situations..............................................................................................................3
4 Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to leadership and
management with conclusions that support theories of leadership.............................................5
5 Conclusions about managers and leaders have made an impact on the organization and
recommendations for future improvements................................................................................6
TASK 2 ...........................................................................................................................................7
1 Introduction to the key operations of Toyota...........................................................................7
2 Define each of the key operational functions with the roles and responsibilities of managers.
.....................................................................................................................................................7
3 Explanation of the key operational approaches to operations management and their value....8
4 An evaluation of the impact of external business environment factors that affect decision-
making by leaders and managers................................................................................................8
5 How operational efficiencies can be improved for business objectives using appropriate
management and leadership approaches.....................................................................................9
6 Conclusions and supported recommendations for future improvements.................................9
CONCLUSIONS............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Operations and management of organization reflect the system of company. It is
important to manage all the activities, strategies of company (Ardestani-Jaafari and Delage,
2016). This report will be based on Toyota Motor Corporation. It is the largest company of
automobiles. This study will discuss the management structure of Toyota. It will define the role
and functions of leaders and managers. This will introduce the key operation of organization. It
will evaluate the weakness and strength of different approaches.
TASK 1
1 Introduction of Toyota and its management structure
Toyota Motor Corporation is an auto mobile company of Japan. This corporation was
founded by Eiji Toyota. It delivers financial service and work with various kind of businesses as
well. It makes lorry and car under different five brands including Toyota such as Scion, Hino
lorry, Lexus, Daihatsu. Toyota was the largest company in Japan by revenue and market
capitalization in July 2014. In sales of hybrid electric vehicle, Toyota is the market leader in the
world (Baxley and et.al., 2016). With that Toyota is market leader in hydrogen fuel cell vehicle
as well.
Organisational structure of Toyota
Toyota has the divisional organisational structure. This organisational structure includes
activities of the business around market, geographical, service and products groups. Hence,
company organized on divisional lines that operate group widely, commercial customers. This
structure experiences the significant changes in 2013. In previous organisational structure
company has strong and positive centralized global hierarchy that was spoke and wheel structure.
In that structure individual businesses did not communicate to each other and all the
communication were gone to headquarters (Beske and Seuring, 2014). Thus, this organisational
structure were criticised for responding slow to understand safety issue. After that Toyota
implement the new organisational structure which has these characteristics.
Global Hierarchy: Toyota maintains its global hierarchy. In divisional organisational
structure Toyota has increase its efficiency in order to increase the decision making power
process with less centralised.
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Geographical Division: in new organisational structure Toyota has eight regional
division. Each and every regional head reports to headquarter of the company. With help of this
Toyota has improves its service and product according to condition of regional market.
Product base Division: Toyota has set its organizational structure according to product
base. Considering this Company has four division. That is Lexus international, Toyota no. 1 in
Europe, japan and North America. Toyota no. 2 for operations in all the other region. Unit centre
that is responsible for transmission, engine, and other operations (Chatzoudes, Chatzoglou and
Vraimaki, 2015). This organisational structure of Toyota assists in order to development of
product line and brand.
2 Definition and roles of both managers and leaders, with the difference between management
and leadership
Manager: The coordination and organization of tasks and activities of business in term of
achieving goals and adjectives. They are responsible for ensuring resources of the organizations
are managed in profitable direction. With that they focused on intangible and tangible resources
and their contribution to enhance performance of company and productivity.
Leader: leader is the person in the organization who leads the commands of company. They
lead the group of individuals to achieve the shared or conman goal via developing clear vision to
their team members (Lamba and Singh, 2017). With that they are responsible for ensuring about
responsibility of their team members to achieve the objectives.
Roles of Managers and Leaders.
Manager
Planning: Manager has role to plan strategies, mission, and vision of the organisation.
They are responsible to plan and execute day to day activities of the company.
Organizing: managers are responsible for controlling organizational structure of the
company. Organizing incudes balancing and matching all the resources that are required to
obtain the set objectives and goals
Controlling: managers help to control all the activities to make sure everything goes
according to plan. They are responsible for checking all activities taken place effectively and
efficiently.
Leader
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Direction and Motivation: Leaders are involved to direct the team in proper way by
assigning them task. With that they are responsible for to motivate continuously to achieve better
performance.
Sitting Goals: Main role of leader in organisation is to set goals and objectives for their
team member (Cook and Billig, 2017). By conveying clear vision leaders help team member to
achieve goals.
Organising: leaders have role to organise activities of the tasks and provide resources
related to task to the right member of the team.
MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
Category Management Leadership
Goal Setting  They execute plans,
improve the existing
sources and see the
results.
 Leadership create
vision and set the
goals.
Thinking Process  Management is focused
on resources, things
and looks inward.
 Leadership is focused
on employees and look
outward.
Governance  They use conflicts,
influence and
according to decisively.
 They avoid conflicts,
use authority and act
responsibly.
Employee relationship  They manage and
controls employees by
giving orders
 Leadership motivate
and empowered
employees.
Operation  They do right things by
managing changes.
 They do right things by
creating changes.
3 Analyse different roles of management and leadership in application to different organisational
situations.
Situation 1
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Labour Turnover: It is employee retention in that company convince their employees to
remain with the business. Labour turnover can be increased by bad working condition, low
wages, bad treatment etc.
In the case of labour turnover, leader is responsible to motivate employees toward their
work. Make them efficient in order to complete task properly on time. Solve their problem
related to workplace. According to Action Central Leadership theory leader are focused on
their team, individuals and task. With these leaders should use the element in proper way to
execute the vision and plan properly.
Managers are responsible to provide better work environment to employees. Workers
must feel stress free in order to compete their task. According to contingency theory of
management manager are responsible for to increase the productivity of Toyota. This theory
task oriented or relationship oriented (Moutinho and Vargas-Sanchez, 2018). It assists manager
to improve the n working environment of the company by making healthy relation with
employees.
Situation 2 Task assignment
Classical theory of management: this theory also known as scientific management
theory. This theory enhances the productivity of employees in term of achieving the objective
and goals. It helps to increase the efficiency and output. With that it assists organisation to
examine all the information related to management.
Managers apply the classical management theory via increasing the skills and job for
enhancing abilities, skills, knowledge of employees in the organisation. For this manager plans
their day to day activities and operations and provide benefits, incentive and compensation for
empowering, encouraging their employees to increase the satisfaction and output.
Behaviour theory of leadership: This theory highlights the behaviour of leaders in the
organisation. This theory is the best tool in order to measuring potential and strength of
leadership for any situation.
Leaders apply behaviour theory through motivating employees towards tasks. They
develop skills knowledge of workers with training and development (Pohl, 2014). This theory
teaches leaders appropriate behaviour for any situation.
The function of manager will be regulating within certain function in terms of planning,
delegating and evaluating. All of them will be very important and helping manager to plan out all
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policies effectively with considering both internal and external factors. Manager will be
delegating its duties and responsibilities to others who are known to as their subordinates. This is
one of the most important task or function of manager which they are performing into specified
condition. Leader and manager of Toyota will be playing very much important role in variety of
situation which will be different from each other.
4 Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to leadership and management
with conclusions that support theories of leadership.
Task Oriented Approach: this approach is used to develop and increase the productivity of
employees and work efficiency of employees to achieve business goals of Toyota
Strength
 It is useful to clarify the purpose, demands and wants of Toyota which is specified
by the leaders.
 It assists to understand the task. With that employees are able to know their roles
and responsibility in order to complete the task (Ravindran, 2016).
Weaknesses
 There is lack of innovation hence, there is no scope for training and development.
 Due to low morale employees do not feel motivated and enthusiastic.
 This theory basically focused on mode of working so that there is lack of
creativity.
Relationship Oriented Theory: This theory focused on low level of employee retention and
interpersonal relationship between employees and management of Toyota.
Strength
 Employees and staff of company feel motivated, meaningful, empowered and
valued because of positive work environment.
 It enhances the job satisfaction among the employees by providing them all
psychology needs.
 Employees get the better work environment workplaces.
Weaknesses
 Lack of desired services, dissatisfaction increase in customers.
 There is lower performance due to no pressure of work completion.
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 There is no pressure of completion of task, due to this profitability of company
can decrease.
Conclusion
Both the theories of leadership and management supported Toyota to enhance its
productivity and profitability (Pohl, 2014). Task oriented theory helped organisation to develop
and increase the work efficiency and effectiveness of employees. Due to this company increased
its revenue and image in the market. It clarified the purpose, demand and needs or organisation.
Relationship oriented theory managed the interpersonal relationship between employees and
management. With these employees get healthy environment and they improved their work
performance. It increased the job satisfaction among employees by fulfilled all their needs.
5 Conclusions about managers and leaders have made an impact on the organisation and
recommendations for future improvements
Leaders and managers play an important role in Toyota for consistent growth. Leadership
and management is the process which influence the behaviour and performance of employees in
order to achieve business goals in competitive market. Leaders and managers with good skills
maintain the good relationship among their employees. These skills of both motivated,
empowered employees in order to enhance their work performance. Leadership and management
influenced the behaviour of other employees and staff to obtain the conman purpose and
objective (Ravindran, 2016). Interpersonal process between leaders and employees increased the
efficiency to meet the target of Toyota. The Leader and manager guided employees to work
towards the attainment of common organisation objectives.
Considering these employees worked hard beyond their abilities and effort more in order
to meet business objectives in the competitive market. With this managers and leaders monitored
employees performance, to analysed their strengths and weaknesses, and ensure their effort
which are going on right, direction or not. Leaders are able to solve the conflict among the
employees. With that they are enough efficient to resolve the conflict between employees and
management. Both the managers and employees acknowledged the effort of the employees and
explained their roles and responsibilities to achieve the goals (Renz, 2016). With that they built
the positive work environment by maintaining personal contact with employees. Managers
coordinated all the planning, strategies to implement it properly.
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Mangers and leaders enough potential to improve future of organisation by recommend
them future improvement. For improving performance of employees by organize the training and
skill development programs. This may help employees to learn some new tactics, strategies and
develop their skill and knowledge regarding to work. More skilled and well knowledge
employees can support Toyota to achieve their objectives.
TASK 2
1 Introduction to the key operations of Toyota
Operations are the administration of business practices to make the highest level of
effectiveness and efficiency in the organisation. There are some key operations of Toyota.
Finance: this department plays an essential role in key operation. This department
ensures the finance of organisation must utilize in proper way to proceed the major function.
Such as creation of services and goods must be satisfied customers.
Forecasting: it relates to the process of creating an evaluation of certain events that may
occur in the future. Forecasting estimate the demand and needs of consumers. So that production
can be done accordingly. With help of this, management well known about the production of
goods and service.
Supply Chain and Configuration: this department is responsible for ensuring the
effective management, controlling, monitoring all the activities regards to products (Wensveen,
2018). Sully chain configuration starts from the delivering the raw material till the end of
production and its selling to the consumers.
Operation: this department is responsible for the organising, directing, planning, and
controlling all the activities in the organisation. This help company to convert the raw materials
into valuable service and goods to satisfied customers.
Importance and value of operation management-
Operational management is very much important as will be enhancing overall
performance and productivity of organisation and employees as well. This plays vital role in
handling various type of issues like that of design, operation and maintains of system that is used
for production of goods. This will also be including the effective operation management of
revenue increment, waste reduction and others as well. It will be transforming various resource
used which is operation subsystem of organisation into value. The proper assessment of
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operation management will be helping into organisational objectives which is one of the main
aim of Toyota.
2 Define each of the key operational functions with the roles and responsibilities of managers.
There are different roles of managers in different key operations.
Finance: Managers in finance department perform data analysis with that advice senior
manager in order to profit maximizing ideas. They are responsible for financial health of Toyota.
For this they make financial reports, develop strategies, direct investment activities and make
plans for the longer term financial goals for the organisation.
Forecasting: Manager is responsible for planning production speed, using inventory
levels, product demand to estimate the result (Wiggins, 2014). With this they collect and
evaluate the date to build solution for increasing production. They provide inputs to strategic
decision in order to affect the functional are of responsibility.
Supply Chain and Configuration: Supply chain manager is responsible for supply raw
materials. With that they have role to deliver products with expected quality and quantity by
customers. Managers have to ensure the right delivery time of products and quick services.
Human Resource Management: This department is responsible for recruiting talented
sand qualified candidates in the organisation. For this they make strategies and use the latest
technology to hire right applicant with great skills and development.
3 Explanation of the key operational approaches to operations management and their value
Total Quality Management Approach: It is a framework based on the beliefs that
company can make longer time profit with the help of all their team members from the lower
level of workers to the higher level of members of the company. All are included in
improvement of delivering satisfied services to customers (Wild, 2017). This approach describes
the series of way for the company to implement strategies in order to improve the system of
company. TQM is focused on the process of Toyota to produce their products. Quality of product
can be measured by reliability, durability usage and so on. It is structured effort by workers and
employees to improve the quality of goods and services via proper research and feedback.
Lean Approach: This approach is used to emphasize the business model, plan and
encourage the process of customer development and discovery and iteration to obtain the right
product. With help of this Toyota can understand the value of customers and focuses on key
operations to increase is continuously.
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4 An evaluation of the impact of external business environment factors that affect decision-
making by leaders and managers.
There are some external effects that impact the business environment of Toyota.
Political Factors: these factors have grown with globalization. Business of environment
is depended on the government and its policies. Political stability refers a calm environment for
business (Ardestani-Jaafari and Delage, 2016). It is an opportunity for Toyota to grow with
minimal political tension. Company use this opportunity to improve market penetration.
Economic Factor: this factor influenced the development of Toyota. Organization has
opportunity to improve its exports on the weakness of Japanese Yen. With that company has
opportunity to grow its market in UK that is the biggest market after the Japan.
Social Factors: Toyota has chance in order to deliver more products and services that
satisfy interest of customers in electric and hybrid vehicles. With that company has to manage
widening wealth gap that can be threats due to declining middle class. Because middle is the
main profit or revenue source of organization.
Technological Factors: this factor effect Toyota due to its technological business.
Organization has opportunity to improve e-commerce abilities or services for sales of its
products. With that Toyota also increase its mobile apps in order to engage more customers.
Environmental: company needs to concern about the environmental decision making.
For this organization can deliver the more ozone friendly products for example cars with higher
fuel efficiency and electric car.
Legal Factors: this factor analyze the law and regulations which can affect the business
of Toyota (Baxley, and et.al., 2016). Organization has chance to provide good quality of
products that satisfy the requirement based on environmental law.
All the above factors will be very much effective and impacting business environment
and decision making by both leader and managers as well. Like with help of political factor
Toyota will be able to analysis which country could be suitable for them to explore based on
their political stability. If they are having knowledge of economic factor like inflation and price
raise they could be able to improve export policies with countries like that of Japan. Social
factors including social interest of customers into electric and hybrid vehicles so that sales of
Toyota.
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5 How operational efficiencies can be improved for business objectives using appropriate
management and leadership approaches.
Operational efficiency can be improved to meet business objective empowering staff to
work beyond their ability. Working remotely is the best thing to empower and motivate
employees. With help of these leaders and managers can build a positive work place where
employees can work freely with greater abilities and capabilities. Behavior theory of leadership
can emphasize the special behavior of leaders. This theory is enabled to measure the potential of
leadership for every special situation. This also the leader show their concern for products and
people as well.
Whereas managers can help to achieve the business objective through improving
collaboration. This is the main tactic that managers should follow in order to increase the
efficiency of operation management (Beske and Seuring, 2014). It helps to improve and manage
the team work within employees which help in understanding and bonding of workers. Due to
this a healthy workplace is built where people can work freely and stress free. With classical
theory of management manager van improve the productivity of employees in order to obtain the
business objectives.
6 Conclusions and supported recommendations for future improvements.
Managers and leaders played an important role to increase the operational efficiency.
They assisted organisation to empowering and motivating remote employees in order to make
them more productive and efficient, they cleared the labour redundancies that lower the level of
organisational structure (Lamba and Singh, 2017). Whereas managers improved the
collaboration between employees and management. That supported workers to understand their
roles and responsibility and as result positive environment created where workers are free to
work.
For making more profit and revenue Toyota can improve its internal strategies.
Organisation has strong brand image, in this case Toyota recommended to strong the supply
chain in the market. With that organisation can work on the higher demand of advanced
electronics and higher fuel efficiency vehicle.
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CONCLUSIONS
From the above study it has been concluded that new organization structure of Toyota
improved it system. It improves its decision making power and increased the productivity of
service and goods. Effective leaders and managers assisted company in order to empower and
motivate employees to bring effective performance. Operational management of organization
enhanced the effectiveness of operations.
REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ardestani-Jaafari, A. and Delage, E., 2016. Linearized robust counterparts of two-stage robust
optimization problems with applications in operations management. GERAD, École des
hautes études commerciales.
Baxley, B.T. and et.al., 2016. Human-in-the-loop assessment of alternative clearances in interval
management arrival operations.
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Beske, P. and Seuring, S., 2014. Putting sustainability into supply chain management. Supply
Chain Management: an international journal.19(3) pp.322-331.
Chatzoudes, D., Chatzoglou, P. and Vraimaki, E., 2015. The central role of knowledge
management in business operations: Developing a new conceptual framework. Business
Process Management Journal. 21(5).pp.1117-1139.
Cook, G.N. and Billig, B., 2017. Airline operations and management: a management textbook.
Routledge.
Lamba, K. and Singh, S.P., 2017. Big data in operations and supply chain management: current
trends and future perspectives. Production Planning & Control. 28(11-12). pp.877-890.
Moutinho, L. and Vargas-Sanchez, A. eds., 2018. Strategic Management in Tourism, CABI
Tourism Texts. Cabi.
Pohl, B., 2014. EU foreign policy and crisis management operations: power, purpose and
domestic politics. Routledge.
Ravindran, A.R., 2016. Operations research and management science handbook. Crc Press
Renz, D.O., 2016. The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management. John
Wiley & Sons.
Wensveen, J., 2018. Air transportation: A management perspective. Routledge.
Wiggins, M.W., 2014. The role of cue utilisation and adaptive interface design in the
management of skilled performance in operations control. Theoretical Issues in
Ergonomics Science. 15(3). pp.283-292.
Wild, T., 2017. Best practice in inventory management. Routledge.
Online
Management and Operations. 2019. [ONLINE] Available thought:
<https://www.topmba.com/mba-programs/what-operations-management>
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