Analysis based on management processes
This report gives us some basic ideas under the case study based on Management Practices of General Motor’s, this is one of the most famous organizations for its best performance and for some successful achievements within the functional units of the company. Thus under the following document, we are going to discuss some critical analysis of the management process within the company, what are all those new management skills which the firm implemented, and discuss some critical reflections of those management methods. Along with those management processes we are also going to discuss some basic analysis of internal and external struggles which General Motor’s needed to overcome, such as for understanding those various types of new technologies and skills used by Toyota, as those were quite different from the previous ones. Thus, we are going to discuss those management technologies and even discuss those problems which General Motors needed to overcome while adopting the new management policies of Toyota. We have includes all those various kinds of management skills which both the companies used for their production, thus we have a brief description about how General Motors were not having proper managing skills as compared to all those managing skills of Toyota, as Toyota had the most efficient skills thus General Motor’s planned to implement their new technologies, moreover the report also consist of some major challenges which the employees faced while implementing all those new technologies and skills for overcoming those appointed tasks, how various managers were in charge of handling some specials departments and they ordered the employees for undertaking those new techniques of management.
Critical analysis of various Management Processes utilised by General Motor’s
After the rapid growth of some well know automobile companies like Toyota and some other Japanese based companies started to emerge within the American market and even having upper hand within the US automobile market, then the companies manager planned to collaborate with Toyota and decided to implement some new innovative technologies for manufacturing within the late 1970s (Rothaermel, 2016). Some of those highly experienced employees of GM planned to merge with some skilled professionals of Toyota such that by doing such they could gain some new technologies and new management skills which would help the company is having some growth under the sale of automobiles. Thus, we are going to discuss some quick managerial practices with both companies, thus some quick automotive assembly, supply chain management practices along with some product design and development skills used:
Jobs for General Motors did not have any complex tasks to perform due to which most of the employees were only appointed to do the same task for a longer time period such as working for ten hours a day, and mainly the employees within the company were not encouraged and moreover they were assigned with the same task. Some of the design and development techniques were mainly under the control of engineers, along with that the quality was controlled by the quality management team. Even one of the major drawbacks of General motors was they had a strong unfavourable feeling among the highly ranked employees and the ones that were under the local management teams (Emde, 2017). The research even stated that some of the employees struggled for their own job security, such as the employees never had the supporting feeling for helping their partners and moreover, they never used to share the work with others, because they had a feeling that, in such case, they need to fulfil both the tasks due to such felling they never had proper management skills within each other and never had growth for their organization.
Toyota on the other had strong management skills and techniques within their organization, as they had a very strong working and some superior quality management practices; most of the employees present in the company had various kinds of serious responsibilities as each and every employee present was able to undertake about more than six to eight tasks within a single a day, and most of the employees present were also responsible managing the quality of the vehicles, moreover those employees are also improving the quality of production. Even the employees had the strong feeling of working in a team and sharing the work with their co-workers, and they were also able to solve their own problems. Thus automotive assembly is regarded to be a high-performance working system for Toyota.
In the case of the supply chain management system, it could be identified that General Motor’s mainly had a short term, such as they had very short term contracts for the supply of materials from those appointed contractors. They mainly choose items according to their price range and also accept items according to the price range mentioned within the contract (Luthra et al., 2015.). Moreover, they had low communication with all those suppliers who had various kinds of supplies of materials within the company. Finally, it was identified that General Motors did not good relations with their suppliers and they also paid high incentives for some employees who were highly qualified within their required skills. Thus following were some supply chain management skills that were applied by General Motors.
Toyota had strong relations with those suppliers who providers who mostly used to supply goods for the company, and even the company had very strong relations with all those various suppliers and they never choose materials by examining their price range. The company mainly used some usual activities such as “value analysis” and “value engineering” such that they can develop each and every model of the automobiles with certain accuracies. Toyota applied various new strategies and healthy relations with their engineers as they used to overcome several serious issues within their work field, and another reason was most of the suppliers were interrelated with most of the suppliers thus, in case keeping the suppliers near to the production unit, it had always maintained strong relationships with the overall suppliers with the helped them in managing the supply of various kinds of materials within the organization. Due to all those qualities of long term relations with all those suppliers, Toyota always had a great facility of various kinds of supply of materials which are useful for most of the manufacturing units of the company, thus due to such reasons most of the suppliers were mainly planning to invest most under such great manufacturing companies (Vanalle et al., 2017).
Product Design and development
In the case of products designing and development process, GM used to handle under three various categories as the first one is car division under this category they used to design the models for the car, second is fisher body, this is one of the most essential division under GM as this unit used to have detailed engineering along with some more advanced tools for modifying new models and finally, the GMAD (General Motors Assembly Division) under this category the overall parts for the automobile were assembled according to its requirements. These three did not have any collaboration and the quality of teamwork within, they always used to approach their president for the approving the result for any problems or issues. After some, they decided to develop their designing skills by collaborating with some more new companies but till the end, they could approve their models designed, or they could implement any new development process within the company for overcoming some significant barriers. Under various situations most of the managers of General Motor’s were disappointed as most of the time they accepted some serious decisions could be approved with their acknowledgement by which most of the senior employees could gain the position of a manager (Schöggl et al., 2017.).
Under product design and development, Toyota use to have excellent practices for managing all these various departments and they even used divide their work into various teams and each team used work together for accomplishing any task and then after completion they used to present their work to their team leaders and then the work could be approved. As in the case of Toyota, team leaders had the ultimate powers of managers as they can easily handle the task of designing products, managing the supply chain of the company, and even the amount of sale the company covered within a certain financial year.
Analysing those various kinds of internal and external struggles which General Motors encountered
After facing various kinds of difficulties for establishing a firm growth, the company had to face some kind of serious challenges for implementing all those managements technologies within themselves, form various research and development it was identified that most of the employees under General Motors was not having growth under their appointed jobs as they were asked to complete the same single task for long hours of time and even the company was having a fear of various other Japanese companies which were trying to evolve within the US market for automobile production. Then the company planned to implement various new management techniques which Toyota used under their organization, such as there are various kinds of aspects which General Motors was missing within their management thus, they thought of accepting the ideas of Toyota and it took around 20 years to implement all those management skills. After facing some kind of serious issues within the company for handling various departments so that the company could result in providing a greater amount of profits and even more customers would be attracted for experiencing the all-new technologies and newly designed vehicles manufactured by General Motor’s (Alghisi, 2015). Thus, we are going to discuss briefly some common internal and external challenges which the company needed to overcome while implementing the techniques of Toyota.
According to the first stage of change General Motors mainly faced various kinds of challenges, because understanding those all new models of management and skills which the employees of Toyota used were quite difficult to understand as implement even though after some serious struggles the manager tried to implement some new practices of NUMMI such as some new techniques of development with all proper arrangements, but due to some sort of misconceptions this practice resulted in less improvement and as a result, the company planned to avoid the system. Moreover, the company also had to face some serious challenges for maintaining good relations with all those who people who were related to the implementation of such new practices within the company and even all those suppliers who supply various kinds of products within the company. After such low performance, it was examined that this problem arose due to the heavy amount of price range given by the suppliers as if they had perfect discount rates the company could have planned to continue its supply for the previous supplier, and in case of optimal relational contracts it has been identified that most of the suppliers are classified as insiders and outsiders such as insiders are those who are considered to be daily customers whereas outsiders are those who visit rarely. According to the research, it has been identified that most of the tasks are mainly related to the relation of contracts as in such case if the company would approve the supplier is useful for development, in such cases we can implement such contracts but if it results in some kind of loss or failure for the company then it may be avoided by the all the employees present within the organization (Hillis et al., 2016). According to the history of General Motors, most of the services were running quite smoothly due to some replacement of various suppliers they need to face some more challenges which were quite difficult to overcome. Thus to decrease in the number of suppliers the company had to face a huge downfall of various kinds of shares related to the organization, even GM hardly implemented the process of relational contracts and rather considered it as a rival for most of the cases. Even the company was also facing some adverse challenges regarding those external suppliers who was mainly responsible for the supply of various kinds of supply materials which are required for the companies growth, and moreover, they need to look into various government factors for expanding and developing some special managing qualities along with all these they also need to handle various kinds of issues related to taxation and also the amount of sale which the company offers. Moreover, the company CEO in the year 1991 decided to roll some new qualities of development skills but due to a loss of $5 billion they could handle most of the units of the company and thus they decided to close about 21 units of their organization and even 74,000 employees were restricted for their respected jobs. Thus it was further identified that after overcoming some serious issues under the external factors which affected GM was gradually decreased after such step and due to which most of the employees were following the new management skills and also implementing the new techniques such that they can manufacture according to Toyota’s manufacturing units.
Even under several departments of the manufacturing units, it was examined that some common factors such as managing supply chain management skills and also handling some common issues under design and development these were some of the most efficient issues which most of the employees and suppliers used to have problems in adopting all those policies of managing long term relations with all those suppliers who support the company in serving some essential supplies as some supply raw material and some supply the products which are to be used for fitting those parts within the parts developed within those manufacturing units of the company. Thus as result, the company was facing various relational issues for implementing all those new managing practices for a better outcome. Moreover with various kinds of challenges the company was facing some difficulty under some manufacturing units and even due to such reason it was having a fall in its usual customers as most of the customers are generally prefer vehicles with some more advanced technologies which some famous Japanese companies are manufacturing in major parts of US. Thus for low growth in production less number of investors were interested in investing their stocks within General Motors.
In the case of internal challenges, there are several factors that offended General Motors in adopting some efficient qualities of Toyota. Under this stage, the administration faced some issues related to reliability and accuracy of all those various employees and suppliers who were serving for the organization and they had various technical issues such as how to implement such new ideas for purchasing new products and how to understand such new development techniques which were followed by Toyota. According to some research it has been identified that it becomes quite difficult to gain trust against such employees and suppliers to gain trust and were also opposing against such newly adopted ideas and for implementing various new ideas of development. Then after such practice, the company planned to introduce the new system of union contract by which they thought they can convince their employees for working under teams and could easily resolve various problem solving, then suddenly new problems arise that the company was planning to decrease the number of employees present by evolving such new policies, and most of the employees though that they need to accomplish huge task individually which considered being a huge pressure for the employees (Dekoninck et al., 2016.). Thus due to all such various circumstances the company needed to face several reliability problems among all those various employees within the company. Moreover, the company was planning to have short term relations with all those various groups divided, even though they could gain trust among each and others and it became quite difficult to understand those employees and suppliers regarding various ideas of managing skills. Thus for such a case, the local manager planned to set up a meeting for all the employees and planned to create a committee for maintaining long term relationships among each and the manager even decided to have a hike in their incentives but the employees refused such proposals which were becoming a serious issue under managing various employees and suppliers within the organization. One of the most disappointing factors was that the plant manager who ordered all the employees to adopt all those managing skills within them was demanded to be fired from the company, despite introducing the new technology of manufacturing more advanced cars for a lower price. According to some common theories it was examined that the GM never used the system of working together in a team but after various struggles, it was identified that it was getting difficult for them to work under certain teams. The companies manager wanted their suppliers to stay close to their company such that they can easily avail themselves of all those essential products, but after such requirement, they never provided any kind of business assurance for serving their future business, despite serving materials to their required location and also the cost of safety they never gave any safety assurance for their suppliers.
Moreover one of the second major internal challenges which the company faced was it planned to implement the new technology of copper-cooled engines within most of its manufacturing vehicles, they planned that the process would help in various ways but these products were mainly under the Chevrolet division which was again the policies which General Motors under various areas of management. Apart from all these General Motors also had to face various kinds of dynamic development challenges in major parts of manufacturing units, such as even if the company tries to implement some kind of physical features which could be implanted from the Japanese automobile companies, still there was no further development in any management qualities for the company. As most of the employees were working still according to their previous custom order and mainly the blue-collar employees were mainly responsible for breaking serious rules and regulations within the company, which was regarded as a serious challenge under various circumstances. Thus after facing some serious challenges for adopting some management techniques, GM was able to have most of its manufacturing units equal as compared to that of Toyota, and even it was also most of the highly-rated shares in comparison of various other companies. Thus following are some major issues that General Motors’s needed to overcome in order to implement all those working techniques, skills and all those various kinds of managing practices that would help the company in having its manufacturing growth.
Conclusion
Thus finally the report concludes with some common managing practices which General Motors and Toyota used for managing various kinds of managing skills within their organization, along with all these the report also includes some kinds of management systems by which the company could accomplish its work of manufacturing some highly advanced vehicles. Moreover, the report also includes all those various kinds of challenging factors which they needed to overcome for introducing all those various kinds new managing practices for their company, such as how employees were convinced for working in a team and even they were suggested to listen to all those various kinds of instructions which are delivered by the manager in charge of their particular department. Thus the following challenges are further divided into subdivisions such as internal challenges and external challenges; the report gives a brief description of all those various kinds of challenges which the employees encountered in making some serious decisions for managing the task into various parts and finally, the essential part is the document gives us a knowledge of how we should work in a team with collaborations of various team members present and supporting them under various difficult situations.
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