Toyota Motor Corporation

Toyota Motor Corporation (Japanese: トヨタ自動車株式会社, Toyota Jidōsha Kabushiki-gaisha?, TYO: 7203), commonly known simply as Toyota, is a multinational corporation headquartered in Japan. At its peak, Toyota employed approximately 320,000 people worldwide. It is the world's largest automobile maker by sales.

The company was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda in 1937 as a spinoff from his father's company Toyota Industries to create automobiles. Three years earlier, in 1934, while still a department of Toyota Industries, it created its first product, the Type A engine, and, in 1936, its first passenger car, the Toyota AA. Toyota also owns and operates Lexus and Scion brands and has a majority shareholding stake in Daihatsu and Hino Motors, and minority shareholdings in Fuji Heavy Industries, Isuzu Motors, Yamaha Motors, and Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation. The company includes 522 subsidiaries.

Toyota is headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi and in Tokyo.In addition to manufacturing automobiles, Toyota provides financial services through its Toyota Financial Services division and also builds robots. Toyota Motor Corporation (including Toyota Financial Services) and Toyota Industries form the bulk of the Toyota Group, one of the largest conglomerates in the world.

history

Toyota started in 1933 as a division of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works devoted to the production of automobiles under the direction of the founder's son, Kiichiro Toyoda.[8] Its first vehicles were the A1 passenger car and the G1 in 1935. Toyota Motor Co. was established as an independent company in 1937.

Logo and branding

In 1936, Toyota entered the passenger car market with its Model AA and held a competition to establish a new logo emphasizing speed for its new product line. After receiving 27,000 entries, one was selected that additionally resulted in a change of its monikor to "Toyota" from the family name "Toyoda." It was believed that the new name sounded better and its eight-stroke count in the Japanese language was associated with wealth and good fortune. The original logo no longer is found on its vehicles but remains the corporate emblem used in Japan.

Still, there were no guidelines for the use of the brand name, "TOYOTA", which was used throughout most of the world, which led to inconsistencies in its worldwide marketing campaigns.


MEGAWEB, Toyota's permanent exhibition showroom and museum in Odaiba, TokyoTo remedy this, Toyota introduced a new worldwide logo in 1989 in conjunction with and to differentiate it from the newly released luxury Lexus brand. There are three ovals in the new logo that combine to for the letter "T", which stands for Toyota. The overlapping of the two perpendicular ovals inside the larger oval represent the mutually beneficial relationship and trust that is placed between the customer and the company while the larger oval that surrounds both of these inner ovals represent the "global expansion of Toyota's technology and unlimited potential for the future."

The logo started appearing on all printed material, advertisements, and dealer signage starting in 1990 and on the cars themselves in 1991

Marketing

Toyota's marketing efforts have focused on emphasizing the positive experiences of ownership and vehicle quality.[35] The ownership experience has been targeted in slogans such as "Oh, what a feeling!" (1978–1985, in the U.S.),[35] "Who could ask for anything more" (1986–1989), "I love what you do for me, Toyota!" (1990–1997), "Everyday" (1997–2000)", "Get the feeling!" (2001–2004), and "Moving Forward" (2004–present).

Toyota Production System

Toyota has long been recognized as an industry leader in manufacturing and production. Three stories of its origin have been found, one that they studied Piggly-Wiggly's just-in-time distribution system, one that they followed the writings of W. Edwards Deming, and one that they were given the principles from a WWII US government training program (Training Within Industry). It is possible that all these, and more, are true. Regardless of the origin, the principles described by Toyota in its management philosophy, The Toyota Way, are: Challenge,Genchi Genbutsu , Respect, and Teamwork.

As described by external observers of Toyota, the principles of the Toyota Way are:

-Base your management decisions on a long-term philosophy, even at the expense of short-term goals
-Create continuous process flow to bring problems to the surface
-Use "pull" systems to avoid overproduction
-Level out the workload
-Build a culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time
-Standardized tasks are the foundation for continuous improvement and employee empowerment
-Use visual control so no problems are hidden
Use only reliable, thoroughly tested technology that serves your people and processes
-Grow leaders who thoroughly understand the work, live the philosophy, and teach it to others
-Develop exceptional people and teams who follow your company’s philosophy
-Respect your extended network of partners and suppliers by challenging them and helping them improve
-Go and see for yourself to thoroughly understand the situation (genchi genbutsu)
-Make decisions slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering all options; implement decisions rapidly
-Become a learning organization through relentless reflection and continuous improvement