Time-Based Competition in Supply Chain Management: A Case Study of Toyota

Running head: TIME-BASED COMPETITION
TIME-BASED COMPETITION
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TIME-BASED COMPETITION
Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................2
Discussion......................................................................................................................2
Overview of time based competition.........................................................................2
Literature review on time based competition.............................................................3
Case study..................................................................................................................8
Toyota Company....................................................................................................8
Time based competitive advantage for Toyota......................................................8
Conclusion......................................................................................................................9
References....................................................................................................................11

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TIME-BASED COMPETITION
Introduction
This report aims to discuss the concept of time-based competition in the supply chain
of organisations. A brief overview of the topic and how the organisations utilise this for
making the processing of supply chain faster is provided in this report. A brief discussion of
the time-based competition by identifying the key elements that are required for being
successful in delivering the best quality in the operations that are time-sensitive is detailed in
this report. Lastly, this report concludes with an appropriate conclusion for this report.
The term time-based competition is the broad based strategy of competition that
emphasises on time as the main factor in achieving and maintain the sustainable advantage in
the competition (Demeter 2013). This seeks to compress time for proposing, developing,
manufacturing, marketing, and delivering the products. For executing this plan a firm must
alter the present processes and change the structures of decision that is used for designing,
producing, and delivering products to the customers.
Discussion
Overview of time based competition
The time based competition is the strategic advantage that is derived from the creation
of the cycle of order-to-delivery more efficient, compact and maximise the cost effectiveness
for both the consumer and the supplier (Godinho Filho and Saes 2013). This helps in the
compression of time of the whole organisation, across the flow of decisions, customer
processes, distribution, manufacturing, procurement, engineering and the order processing.
The demand conditions are the reason for the rise of advantages that are time based. When
the industries and the markets are experiencing the swift changes in the technological
advances, there is situation of decreased life cycle of products and hence the complete
horizon of profit-earning is compressed (Briglauer, Ecker and Gugler 2013). The operational

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TIME-BASED COMPETITION
time in the alteration of value would demand a strategic review for coping with the
compression of time and the pressure of the market that is based on the demand. The time
based competition presents in two varieties, which are fast to produce and fast to market. The
firms who are in competition with the speed of their respective market emphasize on the
reductions in the lead-time of design. Additionally, the firms can gain the time of minimising
the time for developing the new products or create swift changes in the design (Ontanón et al.
2013). The firms of fast-to-product emphasizes on the speed for responding to the demands
of the customers for the existing products. Wal-Mart is now able to dominate their industry
with replenishing the stores twice the speed as the competitors (Chandra 2015). The firms
that are competing in this sector now focus on the reduction of the lead-time overall the
system that starts from the moment the order is placed till the time, the customer finally
obtains the product. It includes the ability of reducing the time that is taken for manufacturing
of the products and the ability of reducing the time spent in confirming any order of the
customers and actually delivering the product (Hong et al. 2016). These significant reductions
in the lead time are commonly accompanied with the significant reductions in the levels of
inventory.
Literature review on time based competition
The major distinguishing feature of the competitive scenario in the present times are
the globalisation, alterations of the relations of space of the competition, dynamic conception
of the competition, an increasing complexity of the processes and the products, acceleration
of the innovation by technology, hyper competition, swift simulated of the innovations,
decreased life cycle of the technologies and the products (Zhang et al. 2013). All these factors
are the major reason for the thresholds of the globalisation. For resisting the pressure of the
global competition, the companies should have the capability of crossing the threshold of the