Unit 4 Management and Operations Assignment

Unit 4 Management and Operations Assignment

Introduction

The report has been prepared in context of the role of managers and leaders in the organization which helps the company in the improvement of the production efficiency and development of the high quality products. The report includes the study on Toyota Plc, a Japanese company dealing in the automobile sector. The report included the functions of managers and the role of leaders in those functions in order to get the work done from the employees in an efficient manner. The importance of the theories of management and styles of leadership has been explained in the context of the operations management of Toyota Plc.

Task 1

1.Define and compare the different roles and characteristics of a modern leader and a manager in context of Toyota Plc.

Manager: Managers are the persons in an organization who design and manage the work of an organization in the direction of the pre-determined goals and objective of the company. For the successful accomplishment of the objectives, the task of the managers is to develop and establish the relevant strategies and policies and to plan the working of the staff and the employees with the aim that they perform their respective tasks in accordance to the objectives. The managers are distributed on various levels in an organization in order to manage the tasks in the different departments. The managers are also concern with the appraisal of the performances of the employees and they perform this task through implementing the perform appraisal process at the regular time intervals (Ionescu & Dragomiroiu, 2014).

Leaders: Leaders are the people who get the work done from the employees concerning the goals of the company. The leaders play an important role in motivating the employees through their leadership and communication skills and inherent in them the vision of the organization. They make the employees work in a manner to achieve the objectives. The major aim of leaders is to influence and inspire the employees in order to their performance which as a result increase the efficiency and productivity in the organization (Selart & Johansen, 2011).

Differences between the managers and leaders
Often the roles of managers and leaders are considered as interchangeable, but their lies a difference between the functions which are performed by the managers and the leaders in order to get the employees work for the organization.
Managers in the organization perform the task of setting of the objectives as per the vision and mission of the company and the task of the leaders is to further communicate the vision to the employees and inspire them in such a way that the company’s vision become their vision and they follow the steps provided by the leaders.

In Toyota Plc, a Japanese company dealing the business in the automobile industry and is engaged in the business of activities consisting the manufacture, assembly, designing and sale of the passenger cars in the countries like Japan, Europe, Asia and North America. The management of the company is efficient that the strategies developed by the organizations lead to increase in the productivity. The role of the managers are differentiated in an effective manner with that of the role of leaders in the company. The managers of Toyota  Plc establishes the standards for the performance of the tasks of the employees and the leaders in the company with their efficient interpersonal communication skills get the work done from the employees considering the standards established by the managers. This differentiated roles of the managers and leaders in the company, results in the growth in the business as the tasks are segregated and performed in a better way (Reynolds& Warfield, 2010).

The functions of managers and the role of leaders in the organization are as follows:

Planning: The important function of managers of Toyota Plc is to plan and set the goals of the company that complies to increase the revenues and sales of the cars.  The strategies prepared by Toyota Plc regarding the goals of company include KAIZEN which contributes in the continuous improvement in the production process to develop efficiency in product. The role of the leaders in Toyota Plc is to communicate these roles set by the managers to the employees and focus the effort of the employees in the accomplishment of these goals and objectives.

Organizing: The managers of Toyota Plc, organize and utilize the resources of the organization in an effective manner in order to fulfill the organizational goals. The role of the leaders is to efficiently allocate the resources and motivate the employees to perform such as the available resources are utilized for the best outcome.

Directing: The managers direct the tasks to be performed to the employees and staff of Toyota Plc but the leaders play a role of creating a team and directing how the work should be accomplished.

Staffing: Staffing is the function of managers and the leaders are required to get the best out of the employees recruited in the company. Toyota Plc recruit the staff and assign the job according to the skills and capabilities of the employees. The leaders keep on motivating the staff and allocate the work according to the abilities and to communicate with them to solve any grievances along with evaluating their performance.

Coordinating: The managers of Toyota Plc, coordinate the functions of the organization for better outcomes. The functions of different departments such as production department and the finance department also serves the company with the benefit of manufacturing the automobile of high quality in best prices. The role of leaders in the function of coordinating the activities lies with the implementation of the best practices in developing coordination in the activities with the help of communication and good leadership skills.

Controlling: The strategies formulated by the managers and the implementation of these strategies by the leaders in the Toyota Plc are controlled and monitored by the mangers of the company and the leaders verify the outcomes of the performance of the employees with the standards as laid down by the managers and guide the employees accordingly (Enescu & Enescu, 2010).

Task 2

Introduction

The functions of the management along with the styles of leadership applied to the organization can be implied on Toyota Plc to bring the changes in the strategies and policies in order to improve the operations of the company and the cost of manufacturing can be brought down. In this report the role of leaders has been explained in consideration of the functions of management in context to the operational department of Toyota Plc. The report consist the description of various types of the leadership styles applied to the company and the way these leadership styles can be combined with the management theories such as contemporary theory and classical theory along with the styles of leadership that can be applied with these theories for the better operations in the company.

2. Examine examples of how the role of a leader and the function of a manager apply in different situational contexts.

The functions of managers and the role of leaders makes the organization work in the desired direction towards the fulfillment of the objectives of the organization. There are various functions of management as well as different traits and style of leadership which help in the proper functioning of the functions of management. Toyota Plc, is facing the situation where the prices of the fuel, material and equipment are increasing on a rapid phase and in such situation it the effective implementation of the functions of management and the skills of leaders to plan and implement such strategies which can handle the cost of manufacture to increase the sales and revenue of the company.
There are several theories of management which implied with the leadership skills make the company grow its operations. The operational management department of Toyota Plc, focuses on the management theories and combine the efforts of leaders to cut down the cost of manufacture.
The contemporary theory of management is applied by Toyota Plc, to deal with the current situation of the increased cost of the purchase and production. The managers can plan the strategies such as selection of suppliers who can provide the raw material at lower cost. The leaders in Toyota Plc, use their trait to motivate the employees to adopt advance technologies in order to lower the cost of manufacturing and eliminate the resistance to change among the employees through creating an environment of trust with the effective communication skills.
Management by objective is the theory which focuses on the combined efforts of the managers and the employees for the accomplishment of the goals. The managers work with the employees and set the standards of the performance and the leaders delegate the duties to the employees so that they are motivated to perform their task best.
Classical management theory is applied in Toyota Plc, where the managers make the policies to enhance the productivity. The managers have developed the strategy known as KAIZEN in which the efforts of the management and staff are continuous to improve the production activities and here the participative style of leadership can be applied so that the input of both the workers and managers in the decision regarding reducing the cost and improve the production.
Behavioral theory of management is applied in Toyota Plc and the managers follow the policies which take into consideration the skills and abilities of the employees and the leaders use the transformational style of leadership where the leaders communicate with the employees and the policies are defined to the employees in an effective way (McCann, 2011).
Contingency theory focuses the change in the strategies according to the changes in the situations. The leaders play an important role in which they influence the employees to bring changes in the operations in order to meet the challenges prevailing in the market. The managers of Toyota Plc considered the reasons of the increased cost of manufacture and applied the theory to implement some changes in the operational activities to bring down the high prices of the materials and equipment received from the suppliers and according they changed the policies of the company in production and operation department.

3. Apply different theories and models of approach, including situational leadership and systems leadership that can affect operations management in Toyota Plc.

Situational leadership refers to the type of leadership where the style of leadership depends upon the skills and capabilities of the employees fro who the leaders are required to influence for the completion of the task. The operations management of Toyota Plc can be affected with this kind of leadership as the leaders adopt different styles of leadership on different situations. The present situation of the company where the company is facing the issues of the increased cost, situational leadership can play a major role in the following situation.
Systems leadership as applied in Toyota Plc, the leaders control the workings of the employees and communicate the situations of the company and make the employees to work according to the needs of the company such as Toyota Plc need to make changes in the operations of the company and implement those strategies for fulfillment of KAIZEN and let the employees operational department improve the activities related to the manufacture of the cars in low cost.
The management of objective plays an important role in sorting the operational issues by sharing the decision making process with the employees and the expertise are combined of the managers and the employees for the fulfillment of the task. The management by object approach can bring motivation among the employees with the feeling that they are being valued in the organization and this can bring efficiency in their working. The chaos theory focuses on the changes that prevail in the market and the leaders and the manager’s response to the changes accordingly and make the organization work in that direction.

Conclusion

The report concludes that the theories of management operations and styles of leadership according to the theories when applied to the company then better results can be obtained. The report focuses on the theories of management such as the contemporary theory which focuses on the responses on the prevailing changes in the organization and in which the leaders can make efforts in eliminating the situations of resistance to change, other theories which have been explained in the report are the classical and behavioral theories and the styles of leadership that relates to these theories (Otley, 2016).

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Task 3

1.Explain the key approaches to operations management and the role that leaders and managers play in Toyota global business strategy.

Slide 1 The presentation explains the role of the managers and leaders in developing the global business strategy for Toyota Plc with the application of approaches of operational management in the organization along with the description of the values of operational management in the achievement of the objectives of Toyota Plc.

Slide 2 The slide explain the operational management and the functions of the operational management in increasing the productivity of the organization.

Slide 3 This slides depicts the six sigma methodology which are applied in the organization in order to improve the production processes and increase the efficiency. Six sigma eliminates the six types of waste in the organizations. The wastes are Transportation, over processing, wait, inventory, defects in production process, motion.

Slide 3 This slides depicts the six sigma methodology which are applied in the organization in order to improve the production processes and increase the efficiency. Six sigma eliminates the six types of waste in the organizations. The wastes are Transportation, over processing, wait, inventory, defects in production process, motion.

Slide 4 This slide explains the role of managers and leaders to use the total quality approach in the development of the global business strategy of Toyota Plc and described the TQM approach. The approach suggests the continuous improvement that the company need to bring for fulfilling the objective of efficient quality of the products. The five principles of Total Quality Management are customer orientation, continuous improvement, teamwork, quality in work to be maintained, to keep a strategic approach for improvement.

Slide 5 The slide focuses on the role of leaders in Total Quality management in Toyota Plc.

Slide 6 The slide focus on the two approaches that Toyota Plc can adopt in order to improve the system of manufacturing of automobile in low cost with the improved technology and process.

Slide 7 The slide explain the importance of the operation management in an organization considering utilization of resources and eliminating waste.

Slide 8 This slide presents the objective of Toyota Plc, a company operating the automobile industry and goals to develop quality cars as per customer needs.

Slide 9 The slide includes the objectives of Toyota which says that company wants to develop sustainable business along with gaining competence in automobile industry.

1.Explain the importance and value of operations management in achieving and sustaining Toyota’s business objectives.

Slide 10 This slide mentions the role of transformational leadership in meeting the changes and to gain the position in the market.

Slide 11 The slide explains the role of corporate governance in achieving the ethics in the business and establishing the customer satisfaction.

Slide 12 This slide concludes that the company need to focus its efforts in maintaining a proper operational management in the organization to improve the productivity and global business strategies.

Task 4

Access the factors within Toyota business environment that can impact upon operational management and decision making by leaders and managers.

The companies are focusing the need of maintaining the values, ethics and sustainability in the organization to improve the relationship with the customers and to provide the satisfaction with the services of the organization by following the ethical standards in the operations of the company. Toyota Plc operates its business environment full of competition and in order to gain the competitive advantage in the market, to establish a superior position of the company from the competitors, it adopts the concept of developing the sustainable business. The management and leadership in Toyota Plc plays an important role in the corporate social responsibly.
The relationship between the functions of management and the styles of leadership influence the corporate social responsibility in the company. The managers adopt the policies and prepare the strategies considering the factors that can affect the social responsibility of the company towards the society. The policies related to the environment protection, satisfaction of the customers, providing high quality of the products at affordable prices, etc. The role of the managers is to communicate the policies to the organization as a whole and direct the working accordingly. The leaders of Toyota Plc make sure that the plans and the policies have been communicated to the employees clearly and then inspire and influence them to perform in accordance to the strategies. The role of leaders is to define and allocate the work to the employees and providing required training in order to attain the goals and objectives of the corporate social responsibility (Lindgreen& Swaen, 2010).
The factors of the business environment of Toyota PLc that can affect the operational management and decision making of managers and leaders can be the efficiency of the employees, on which the decisions regarding the leadership style applied depends and the performance of the employees are the major factor in the success of the operational management that consist of the total quality management and six sigma approach. Other factors that affect the operational management are the resources available in the organization.

Conclusion

The management and leadership are different and the role of managers and leaders are also different but both works in the same direction of the accomplishment of the goals and objectives of the organization following different theories and styles of management and leadership. The report has been prepared considering the decision making process of the managers and leaders in Toyota Plc in the improvement of the production process and operations of the company and bringing down the cost of cars while maintain high quality. The report also focuses on various theories of operational management in order to eliminate waste and improve the performance of the organization for fulfilling the goals and objectives of Toyota Plc.

References

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