Toyota Motor Corporation is a multinational automotive manufacturing company with its headquarters in Toyota City in Japan. The company was founded in 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated in the same year. Toyota lists among the largest automobile manufacturers globally, with an average of 10 million vehicles annually (Britannica, 2021). Toyota Motor Corporation surpassed General Motors in 2008 for the first time to become a leading global automobile manufacturer. The company has approximately 1000 subsidiary companies and affiliates primarily involved in industrial vehicles, commercial vehicles, automobiles, and automobile parts production. Toyota’s subsidiaries also manufacture automatic looms, steel, woolen products, rubber materials, cork products, synthetic resins, and cotton goods (Britannica, 2021). Additionally, the company has interests in real estate, importation and exportation of raw materials, and prefabricated housing units. Its assembly and distribution firms are established in many countries globally. Toyota is a visionary automotive company that relies on the skills of automotive service technicians to enhance its prosperity.
Toyota’s global vision is to become a leading firm in the future mobility society, thereby enriching global lives through the most reliable and safest mobility techniques. Furthermore, the company aims to exceed customer expectations by committing to quality, true innovation, and planet care and preservation (Greenspan, 2020). It plans to achieve these visions by engaging talented and passionate people with similar visions of a better world. Toyota’s mission statement is “to make ever-better cars, to build a future where everyone has the freedom to move” (Greenspan, 2020). The mission statement conglomerates the corporation’s official statements entailing its business mission, highlighting its enterprise, goals, and business purposes. Toyota’s values include producing quality and world-class goods, obtaining “complete” as an ultimate goal, fostering teamwork spirituality, and inculcating honest, accurate, and ethical practices (Greenspan, 2020).
My selected position at Toyota Motor Corporation is Automotive Service Technician, often referred to as a service technician. Automotive service mechanics and technicians maintain, inspect, and repair light trucks and cars (“Automotive service technicians and mechanics,” 2021). Their typical duties include automotive diagnosis, planning work procedures, testing vehicle systems, and parts, performing essential car maintenance and care, replacing worn-out parts, and performing repairs according to customer and manufacturer specifications. Automotive service technicians also assess checklists to ensure complete examinations and explain the problems or repairs to an automobile to clients (“Automotive service technicians and mechanics,” 2021). The diagnoses are made mainly by computerized diagnostic equipment managed by the technicians. The service technicians access several power tools and automated diagnostic tools. The power tools include hoists, welding torches, pneumatic wrenches, jacks, and lathes. There are different automotive service technicians: drivability technicians, brake technicians, transmission rebuilders and technicians, automotive air-conditioning technicians, and front-end technicians.
An automotive service technician position fits into the organizational structure of auto industries, including Toyota, by applying several organizational skills. This occupation requires individuals to use their organizational and communication skills to supervise, coordinate, and train others while maintaining proper communication structures within the company hierarchy (“Automotive service technicians and mechanics,” n.d.). Additionally, the position aligns with the corporation’s missions, visions, and values that highlight the company’s commitment to quality products and services. This alignment is due to the occupation’s satisfaction with Toyota’s work values such as independence, relationships, support, favorable working conditions, achievements, and recognition.
An automotive service technician position allows an employee to practice the company’s work values. The occupation enables an employee to work and make their own decisions because it corresponds with the occupational needs such as responsibility, autonomy, and creativity (“Automotive service technicians and mechanics,” n.d.). This position also depends on supportive management determined to explore an employee’s best qualities as highlighted by the company policies, human relations, and supervisions. Moreover, this occupation enables an employee to serve others and work with colleagues in a non-competitive and friendly environment, thus helping in enhancing Toyota’s visions, mission, and values. A service technician is a result-oriented position that enables individuals to apply their best abilities, giving them a sense of accomplishment enhancing employee satisfaction. Employee satisfaction is essential for Toyota’s quality assurance policies and objective of ensuring customer satisfaction (“Automotive service technicians and mechanics,” n.d.). Similarly, this occupation satisfies work values that equip employees with leadership potentials besides offering advancement opportunities; hence it is considered prestigious. Toyota requires employees to apply their leadership skills in their workstations to advance. Therefore, an automotive service technician fits within Toyota’s organizational structure.
The automotive service technician position is essential to Toyota’s long-term objectives and visions. Toyota needs automotive technicians to achieve its vision of providing comfort and safety while being environmentally friendly since a service technician’s knowledge allows for quick diagnosis and fixings (“The importance of having certified auto-technicians,” n.d.) Automotive service technicians have a deep understanding of electronics, a level outside many engineers’ scopes, hence the need for technicians due to their practical electronics experience. Service technicians are also capable of diagnosing and servicing intricate electronic systems besides their mechanical skills in removing, repairing, and replacing faulty automotive components. These multi-skill abilities of service technicians are economical to Toyota’s expenditure as it saves the corporation from high salaries burden. Additionally, the flexibility of automotive technicians can help Toyota overcome the challenges of skills inadequacy that would otherwise disrupt its business model (Dupuis et al., 2021). Automotive technicians are essential for achieving Toyota’s customer satisfaction since they can be facets of customer service beyond their typical engine rebuilding and braking system maintenance.
Automotive service technicians are essential to Toyota as they enhance customer satisfaction and quality of services. These concepts, customer satisfaction, and quality service are crucial to Toyota’s high competitive standards and operational productivity. Toyota’s operational productivity depends on the customers’ judgments on the quality of services they experience (Aiyesehinde & Aigbavboa, 2020). Therefore, skilled automotive service technicians uphold the company’s customer experience standards, hence promoting customer satisfaction and leading to positive reviews. Automotive service technicians are considered the cornerstone of any automotive company’s success in meeting quality standards and marketing strategies.
Service technicians play a prominent role in Toyota’s steps towards achieving its visions and upholding its global values and mission. Toyota envisions leading mobility reputation by aiming to enhance mobility safety and responsibility. The company, therefore, depends on automotive service technicians who can effectively maintain, inspect and service its automobiles. These technicians are relevant to Toyota’s organizational structure because they have essential work values and organizational skills: independence, relationships, support, favorable working conditions, achievements, and recognition. These qualities promote institutional leadership development among the technicians besides enhancing employee and customer satisfaction, essential for Toyota’s marketing strategies. The technicians help Toyota achieve its visions, mission, and global values of comfort, safety, and environmental preservation by facilitating the advancement of innovations towards hybrid and electric vehicles that are comfortable, safe, and environment friendly. Therefore, an automotive service technician is critical for improving the automotive industry, and all auto companies should adopt them.
References
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Aiyesehinde, J., & Aigbavboa, C. (2020). Relating quality of service to customer satisfaction in the Nigerian automotive service sector.Collaboration and Integration in Construction, Engineering, Management and Technology, 571-576. Web.
Britannica, T. (2021). Toyota Motor Corporation. Encyclopedia Britannica. Web.
Dupuis, M., Murray, G., & Wu, M. (2021). Technological transformations and the automotive services industry: Meeting the skills challenges for automotive service technicians in Quebec. VOCEDplus, the international tertiary education and research database | education for work and beyond. Web.
Greenspan, R. (2020). Toyota’s mission statement & vision statement: An analysis. Panmure Institute. Web.
The importance of having certified auto technicians. (n.d.). Weber Automotive: Honest and Fair Auto Repair. Web.