Toyota Motor Corporation is a globally renowned Car manufacturer. Toyota was founded in 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda. It is headquartered in Aichi Japan and currently is the largest car manufacturer globally by production and revenue. The company manufactures cars in its five brands namely Toyota Lexus, Hino, Daihatsu and Ranz.
Oracle corporation is a service company from America. It is a multinational technology company that provides database services to customers’ world over. It is headquartered in a town called Redwood shores in the state of California. Its main services are concentrated in developing database related software and technologies, enterprise software programs and cloud based systems. The company was founded by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates in 1977 under Software Development Laboratories banner.
Manufacturing process in Toyota corporation is basically divided into three important stages. Stage one is known as Development, stage two is production technology and the third stage is the production process. The manufacturing process is integrated in a system developed by Toyota called Toyota production system (TPS). This is a socio-technical production system that includes Toyota management philosophy and traditions. The system helps organize the manufacturing process and all logistical requirements of the automaker.
The first stage of manufacturing process, is the development stage. This stage is basically meant to develop and refine products through continuous innovation. This process is handled by the Development Division. This division seeks to develop the technologies of the future for manufacturing cars in a cost effective and efficient manner. The division seeks to identify new technologies that address the ever-changing industry requirements while at the same time fulfilling customers’ requirements. The division is charged with creating designs and car concepts. It develops alternative designs for a concept; all in a quest to produce the most ideal design for a vehicle. This division is the brains behind development of the cars of the future. The division is responsible for extensive planning and provision of visual designs for display to potential consumers. The division also is responsible for creating technical designs, conducting tests and evaluating programs to ensure production appeal is achieved.
The second stage is the production technology stage. This stage involves extensive high level means of production. This stage in essence aims at realizing high quality, efficient and timely manufacturing of the vehicles. This stage takes the designs from the development stage and creates the envisioned designs. This process involves the use of press dies, welding robots to weld the parts together, assembly line jigs to carefully curve the body framework as designed and some painting robots to paint the framework. These installations help realize high quality and low production cost cars. The system ensures high productivity and is friendly to the working environment of Toyota workers. The company claims it hosts the most comprehensive production technology that enables it to produce high quality cars at a relatively cheaper cost than competitor companies.
The last stage is production. This stage involves the actual manufacturing of the cars. The company has about four finishing plants in Japan. In the finishing plants, there is a state of the art production line system to facilitate the production of the cars. The finishing line is mostly operated by state of the art robotics and conveyance system. The robots ensure efficiency and precision of the manufacturing process throughout. The plants finalize the final concepts and provides cars ready for the market.
Oracle corporation provide a wide range variety of services. Oracle been a software service company that essentially adopts the software development model in development of the service process. The process involves splitting of the development into phases that contains activities involved in each phase or stage of software development. The stages or phase involved in coming with the service products offered by oracle include the requirement and design analysis, actual development, testing the product and finally releasing and providing maintenance.
The analysis phase, this is the most important phase of the development life cycle. It involves understanding what the customers of the solution want. It involves collecting the requirement for the solution to be created. The phase includes understanding the problems that a certain service will solve.
The second phase is the development stage. This is where after understanding the problem, developers create code for solving the problem. They design solution through use of computer codes and create a solution that Oracle sells as a service to the consumers.
The third stage is the testing of the solution. After the solution has been developed it is taken through vigorous testing procedures to ensure its effectiveness and efficiency in solving a client’s problem.
Finally, after the product has passed the evaluation test, the product is launched as a software service provided to clients. The company provides this service at a fee and continues to support the product through upgrades and updates.
The two companies are similar in how they handle development services and manufacture products. The companies use a structured process map to enable smooth and effective development of both industries. The stages involved in development ensure continuous flow from inception of an idea to completion in the market environment.
The major difference between a manufacturing one is on the tangibility of their output. The output of a technology service firm like Oracle is intangible while Toyota produces a tangible output. Another fundamental difference is the type of labor the two industries recruit. Manufacturing processes are easily automated as can be demonstrated by Toyota. Service companies on other hand require specific skills to create solutions. It is not a process that can be automated. Oracle has to hire developers to write the various software solutions they provide.
On the issue of customer introduced variability, the service industry cannot offer services unless they are required by the customers. Service companies can predict future client needs and create a framework to solve them. Manufacturing companies however can manufacture goods without customer demand. They can forecast future demand and produce in advance.
