Higher Nationals in Business: Management and Operations

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report analyzes Toyota's management and operations.

1MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
Higher Nationals
Assignment Decision – BTEC (RQF)
Higher National Diploma in Business
Kensington College of Business Centre Code:
10149
Programme Title BTEC Pearson L4 in Business
Student Name Carmen Virlan
Student KCB ID
Number
18135
Unit Number and Title Unit 4 MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
Unit Code: D/508/0488
Academic Year 2018/2019
Unit Assessor Dr John Davies
Targeted Learning
outcomes
LO1, LO2, LO3 and LO4
Issue Date 25/03/2019
Submission Deadline 17/06/2019
Date submitted: 7/06/2018
Group/Semester. July / November 18 group
March 2019 Monday day intakes ( Room 3.3)
Referred Pass Merit Distinction
Unit Final Grade
Learning Outcomes Feedback Grades
awarded

2MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
LO 1
LO 2
LO 3
LO 4
Guidance for improvement / Action Plan / General comments
Date assignment marked: __________________________

3MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
LO1 & LO3......................................................................................................................................4
1. Introduction to role of leadership and management................................................................4
2. Leadership and management functions as per J. Kotter..........................................................4
3. Analysis of Management by Objective process as per P. Drucker..........................................5
4. Three management roles as per H. Mintzberg.........................................................................5
5. Leadership traits theory and two styles of leadership..............................................................6
6. Hard management skills and soft leadership skills..................................................................7
7. Discussion of 3-transformation process in operations management.......................................7
8. Evaluation of what quality means, and four costs of quality for managers to attain business
objectives.....................................................................................................................................7
9. Role managers play in TQM approach....................................................................................8
10. Just-in-Time approach and waste reduction in terms of operations......................................8
11. 3 methods that managers adjust for Capacity Management in operations............................9
12. Conclusion for personal evaluation of role of leaders and managers....................................9
LO2 & LO4....................................................................................................................................10
1. Introduction of selected organisation.....................................................................................10
2. Explanation of the department, with the role of operations...................................................10
3. Background of management team in a department...............................................................10
4. Two strengths and weaknesses of leader/manager approaches.............................................11
5. 3 specific duties and roles for the management in the organisation......................................12
6. One occasion where management role is effective to apply diverse models/theories of the
key management approaches.....................................................................................................12
7. Theory of leadership styles, applied to manager...................................................................13

4MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
8. Examples of transformation process to the company............................................................14
9. Impact of two adjustments for Capacity management for the organisation..........................14
10. Operational recommendations for management on future improvements..........................15
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15
References......................................................................................................................................16

5MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
Introduction
The context illustrates that while working as the manager for Small-medium business to develop
the operations in future, many managerial behaviour and traits run for day-to-day business areas
in diverse companies. The manager has attended to several meetings and visited portfolio of key
clients at Big Banks in Central London to the governmental agencies at Whitehall. Overall, good
experience in terms of operations and management has been gained. While the CEO has intended
to deliver seminar to new recruits for the Program interns who would cover management theory
processes. The organisation selected is Toyota, which has good transformation process and has
good functioning in parts of Whitehall.
LO1 & LO3
1. Introduction to role of leadership and management
According to Jasti and Kodali (2015), the role of leadership is to understand environment where
the company operates. If leadership is regarding getting results, the role of a leader is to develop
strategies to find the desired strategies. Besides, the leader helps to monitor results, and make
strategic adjustments to build the organisation capabilities. Sisson and Elshennawy (2015) have
argued that the role of management is to guide the organisation towards accomplishment of
goals. Further, the management strives for encouraging individual activity, which leads in
reaching organisation goals to hinder attainment of objectives. All managers should have a focus
to work on fulfilment of organisational objectives.
2. Leadership and management functions as per J. Kotter
As per J. Kotter, he argued that management and leadership functions are dissimilar. The key
function of management is to offer consistency to the organisations while leadership produces
movement and change (Vaccaro et al. 2012). It is interpreted that management helps to seek
stability while leadership seeks constructive change while both are crucial for organisation
success in Toyota.
Management (Order and Consistency) Leadership (Change and Movement)

6MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
Budgeting and Planning to establish agenda, and
allocate resources
Establish direction to create vision by setting
strategies
Staffing and organising to make job placements by
establishing procedures and rules.
Aligning people to build teams and communicate
goals
Problem solving to develop incentives and generate
creative solutions
Inspires and motivates to empower subordinates
and satisfies unmet needs.
Table 1: Leadership and management functions as per J. Kotter
(Source: Learner)
3. Analysis of Management by Objective process as per P. Drucker
Management by Objective is considered as the Performance Management approach for which a
balance is done between objectives for employees and objective of the organisation. It aligns in
to decide joint objectives and tends to provide feedback on the results in Toyota. With increase
of good commitment, the managers give benefit to focus on innovation and ideas to development
of the chosen organisation (M. Becker and A. Glascoff, 2014). P. Drucker has set certain
conditions, which include:
 Revise or decide Organisational objectives
 Translate organisational objectives to the employees
 Stimulate employee participation to decide the key objectives
 Monitoring progress
 Evaluation and reward of key achievements
4. Three management roles as per H. Mintzberg
H. Mintzberg has decided to work on 3 roles, which include Interpersonal, Informational and
Decisional for Toyota.
Interpersonal Informational Decisional
 Figurehead performing
the ceremonial duties
 Monitor scans
environment in collect
 Entrepreneur seeks for
improving the unit by

7MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
 Leader has liability to
work for subordinates,
encourage employees
and motivate for
exercising formal
authority
 Liasion makes contacts
outside the command
of vertical chain,
comprising of peers in
other departments and
governments (Suárez-
Barraza and Ablanedo-
Rosas, 2014).
 For example,
managers in Toyota
works with formal
authority to develop
the management
operations work
clearly.
new information
 Disseminator passes
privileged information
to subordinates directly
 Spokesperson shares
information with
people from outside
the organisation
 For example, the
managers try to
monitor the working
area in Toyota, so that
operations are clearly
defined to respective
staffs and members of
the company.
starting projects
 Disturbance Handler
responds involuntarily
to the pressures to be
ignored (Vaccaro et al.
2012)
 Resource Allocator
determines who gets
what
 Negotiator commits
organisational
resources in real time
broad information
 For example, the
manager of Toyota
here starts in
developing new
projects by taking
approval from the
upper management.
Table 2: Management roles as per H. Mintzberg
(Source: Learner)
5. Leadership traits theory and two styles of leadership
According to Gao and Low (2014), in Trait theory, the successful leaders have capabilities,
interests and personality traits, which are different from less effective leaders. Some core traits
include self-confidence, leadership motivation, cognitive liability and knowledge for business.
For Toyota, the use of this theory gives a detailed knowledge for the leadership process. Since it

8MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
gives constructive area of information for leadership, it could be applied by people at all levels in
Toyota. While the theory also makes aware to the managers so that they can develop the
leadership qualities (Pongpearchan, 2015). For example, the managers of Toyota could utilise
information, so that they can evaluate a position and assess how they can be made stronger.
6. Hard management skills and soft leadership skills
Hard management skills could be read for working out the complex problems, and it is acquired
through the training programmes made in the company. Soft skills help in interpersonal issues
and have capability to listen and communicate clearly (Yang and Yang, 2013). For example, the
accountants of Toyota use hard skills in case of account analysis of their operations while the
managers utilise effective leadership and problem solving approach to work on the management
operations.
7. Discussion of 3-transformation process in operations management
The 3-layer transformation process in operations management is shown as Inputs, Feedback and
Outputs. According to Birasnav (2013), Inputs are used to create services and goods, and play a
key role in transforming resources. For example, materials, customers and information are being
processed for Toyota by accountants and consultants. Transforming resource include staffs who
are directly included in transformation process. Next is the output, which processes services and
goods in particular. The transformation process will result into undesirable outputs to design the
services (Marksberry, 2012). A key aspect here is to minimise operations management aspects to
minimise environmental affect of waste over product life cycle. For example, Toyota could
transform its outdated cars into new transformed cars to attract customers. Last is the feedback,
which is being used as a complete controlling operations systems to adjust transformation
processes and inputs used to attain the desired outputs (Heller and Darling, 2012). For instance,
changing the style of designing the cars of Toyota could be an effective step to compete with
Ford and Suzuki. Since feedback is vital for the operations management, it can come from
continuous development of services and goods to end customers.

9MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
8. Evaluation of what quality means, and four costs of quality for managers to attain
business objectives
Quality certainly is to perform for the stakeholders to improve services, systems, products and
processes to fit in the organisation well. To attain business objectives for Toyota, four cost for
quality for managers need to be considered. At first, a prevention cost is being kept for a quality
problem that is occurring. It is least expensive and comprises effective employee training for
assembling products parts in cars of Toyota. As opined by Liker and Convis (2012), Appraisal
cost includes in order to keep quality problem from occurrence. It is done by inspections, and
this is least expensive to have production workers inspect both from outgoing and incoming parts
from their workstations. In Toyota, the internal failure cost occurs when defective product is
being produced, and it appears in the form of reworked goods in common (Marksberry, 2012).
Lastly, external failure costs incur when a defective product is being produced in Toyota but cost
is extensive, as it comprise cost for the product recall, field service, warranty claims and legal
costs related to customer lawsuits.
9. Role managers play in TQM approach
In Toyota, the role of manager should be act as facilitator in workplace of Whitehall to assist the
employees in implementing TQM. Besides, it is important to appoint individuals who can work
as line manager to take in charge of the project as a manager. The employees have to be reliable
enough to handle a crucial project like TQM. Further, Singhal and Singhal (2012) opines that
manager’s liability has to assign the resources, and allocate further time for varied training
programs and then come out with improvement strategies to deliver advanced quality products in
Toyota. However, the role of manager has to communicate benefits of TQM to all other
members (Hitt et al. 2016). It is important to make them understand, on how successful
implementation of TQM programs will yield making of the high quality cars for Toyota.
10. Just-in-Time approach and waste reduction in terms of operations
Just-in-Time (JIT) approach offers optimised workflow that is being measured and planned with
the on-demand movement of possible goods. This also helps to decrease cost of wasted time and
the capacity. In Toyota, it is found that JIT rely on fine-tuned procedure in assembly phase, only
when quantities of items are needed the most. It is integrated that the Toyota Production System

10MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
responds to reality of life by making an approach work in cost-efficient way. To eliminate waste
in Toyota, the use of Kaizen would be used to eliminate waste for every activity, which does not
add value (Cimorelli, 2016). From the concept of Toyota Production System, it decreases the
elimination of muda i.e. factors increasing cost but not adding value.
11. 3 methods that managers adjust for Capacity Management in operations
It is important that managers of Toyota has to review the present metrics of Toyota with the
documentation process, so that gathering metrics could be used in to decide threshold levels and
capacity level. As the manager of Toyota reviews the metrics, it is also important to look if the
threshold breaches do not miss out. Further, gathering information on any kind of tools could be
used for measuring capacity. It is certainly done by using monitoring tools and vendor reports.
According to Coetzee et al. (2016), another method could be Community of Practice (CoP) that
is considered as a group of the knowledge workers while making focus on the specific areas.
CoP in Toyota has to be made with the IT team, so that it can make impact to the capacity
procedure. Besides, CoP has to be the team where managers of Toyota can easily draft and
manage capacity plan. With right training, this may solidify capacity practice in terms of doing
business. Lastly, the managers in Toyota should promote the development for the capacity
process in Toyota to build the capacity process in order to meet the service objectives. As opined
by James and Jones (2014), the ideal objectives of capacity process in Toyota will help to meet
service levels by managing capacity, and then work on the desired roles according to the
manager. It is important that the management team of Toyota has to meet service needs, which
could fulfil objectives on having approval and effective governance with knowledge based
practices.
12. Conclusion for personal evaluation of role of leaders and managers
It is concluded that managers in Toyota has to be liable towards workforce planning, as it sets the
stage of performance evaluation with tasks related to interests, skills and qualifications. In case,
the managers uses talent experience to assist with appropriate skill training when conducted with
high potential. Leaders in Toyota tend to work with leadership virtues, so that appropriate stage
of evaluation is done with potential capabilities. Most leaders’ uses transformative leadership
style to deal the potential issues that work for the targeted business in Toyota.

11MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
LO2 & LO4
1. Introduction of selected organisation
The organisation selected, Toyota is considered as a Japanese automotive manufacturer that is
headquartered in Aichi. During 2017, the corporate structure consisted of 364,445 employees
while as of 2018, it is ranked 6th largest firm by revenue. It is also seen that Toyota receives the
first automobile manufacturer to create 10 million since 2012. By 2014, Toyota was being listed
for market capitalisation in Japan (Homepage, 2019). Presently, it is the leader for the sales of
hybrid electrical vehicles, and even leads with the market leader of the hydrogen fuel cell
vehicles. However, Toyota’s production output as of 2018 is 10,418,144 units, which is huge.
2. Explanation of the department, with the role of operations
The HR department of Toyota is required to work in HR Planning, so that employees are being
specified to organisational goals. Besides, the research is being carried out for organising, and
interpreting data for planning with staff and employee development (Rutledge et al. 2010).
Besides, the job analysis needs recruiting of employee’s function that make opportunities for
qualifies candidates to fill those job vacancies. Since orientation is a key step to help the
employees in Toyota, it needs to advice fresh employees with specific aspects of salary, new job
and benefit programmes. The HR department in Toyota also supports management, so that it can
prepare general programmes and personnel policies (Sisson and Elshennawy, 2015). Along this,
the HR manager also helps to coordinate research by keeping the management of Toyota
informed for making vital decisions by management relating to issues that influence the
personnel. It also develops a schedule for administration of key services, which are delegated to
HR department in terms of operations.
3. Background of management team in a department
It is found that Toyota with their HR department works with a lean manufacturing strategy that
has become the standards for selection in terms of operations. For decreasing unnecessary cost in
case of production, employees have other traits, except consistent in decision-making and the
role in teamwork and cooperation. Toyota has a multi-layered recruitment process, and it calls
for the standardized behaviour (Piercy and Rich, 2015). For example, when Toyota holds a
major interview, the judgers will take characteristics and capability into consideration. For

12MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONS
selection, Toyota is interested to hire people for having strong ethics in work. It could certainly
prefer for selecting right people that are familiar for working with good line of motivation. In
case of group leader selection, it comprises aspects that make a strong instructor (Jasti and
Kodali, 2015). It is where the team leader needs to know about the job, so that they are capable
to train all kind of jobs.
Towards training, Mahadevan (2015) have opined that every developing activity with kaizen
works as a benefit to develop people. It is evident that Toyota is raising its emphasis on training
by opening some of the regional centres, called as the Global Production Centres, with one in
England for supporting Europe and One in Thailand for supporting Far East. The background of
management team of Toyota has also discovered the fact of developing a formal training
program where use of laptops could aid in interactive learning system (Ineak.com, 2016).
Besides, the management team in HR department also looks beyond individual’s work with
evaluation with standardized performance. Thus, this helps the company to make good focus on
tasks, which may not be attracted in terms of issues. While certainly, Toyota is quite capable for
paying higher benefits and wages to retain and attract the exceptional employees.
4. Two strengths and weaknesses of leader/manager approaches
Strengths
 Managers in Toyota make certain that nothing falls down the cracks. The strength is
defined in terms of work ethics, and it helps to build trust. Dependability is also being
built with level of constant follow through day-to-day in Toyota.
 However, managers in Toyota also have the knack to organise teams to effectively make
the job done. They are quite competent to link people all together for completing task,
which works with good understanding. It also helps to sketch deadlines and timelines of a
task (Teich and Faddoul, 2013).
Weaknesses
 The managers sometimes tend to caught up with details, and they are stuck for finding for
the better innovation or solutions to a common procedure. In that stage to make the task
completed, they forget what they would be doing, and why they will do.