It was an informative session for Management students and Professionals present at the Coimbatore Management Association with the presence of R.Chandrasekaran whose vast experience in design & development, project planning & execution, production, quality control and project consultancy has won praises from many. Speaking on the theory of constraints in manufacturing, he spoke on Lean manufacturing, Productivity, Toyota’s innovative style for more profit with non-maintenance of inventory, cost cutting vs cost management and Conversion of Raw materials into finished goods.
Describing Toyota’s changed manufacturing approach, he said the company was completely devastated after World War II and had to be built from scratch. The speaker played out a video where officials from the Japanese car maker went to the US to understand how the production system at Ford worked. One fine day, while visiting a supermarket in the United States they saw how goods were replenished within a short time and interestingly the quantity was limited. This was when the Japanese got an idea and they decided to eliminate the idea of keeping any inventory at their disposal.
It was after this that Toyota decided that they would manufacture only the required number of cars with no emphasis on making one less or one more. He also spoke on how Toyota manufactures the highest number of cars when compared to other automobile makers while also mentioning the amount of precision that goes into the making of each car. After changing its production method Toyota though made fewer cars yet the highlight is that today it is the company which makes the highest number of cars in a calendar year. He ended the session by saying we should know at every stage on what is available product quantity in the market before making fresh productions.