1) What were the effects of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan upon the operations of TRQSS?

2. What strategies could Toyota and TRQSS (or any other supplier) employ to improve supply chain resiliency?

3. How does the existence and utilization of temporary workers affect the ethical behavior of the organization? How might this be addressed?

Answer:

1. What were the effects of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan upon the operations of TRQSS? 

The earthquake's and tsunami's effects TRQSS is a Tecumseh-based Japanese automaker. This was the costliest disaster in the history of mankind. Remarkably, most of the structures in that densely populated city were remarkably unscathed, a testament to Japanese earthquake-resistant construction techniques. The Japanese earthquake and tsunami reaction were swift, effective, and life-saving. The consequences of the earthquake and tsunami that struck the region on Friday, March 2011, impacted the company's activities. On the Richter scale, the earthquake had a magnitude of 9.0 and lasted for five minutes. The majority of the buildings, on the other hand, were unaffected by the earthquake, which did result in a tsunami on Honshu's north shore. The tsunami caused widespread devastation, wiping away Sender's port and damaging cities and villages along the coast. The Tsunami also destroyed Fukushima's biggest nuclear power facility.  

2. What strategies could Toyota and TRQSS (or any other supplier) employ to improve supply chain resiliency? 

The Japanese keiretsu system will aid in the distribution of commodities around the world and will serve as a supply chain management system. It will aid the Toyota sector in its search for new markets and the signing of contracts with other companies around the world to supply their goods. The downsides of the Keiretsu system include the possibility of reduced competition among companies, as the keiretsu corporation (Toyota) would know that it will be able to obtain financing, prompting it to pursue risky initiatives. However, the Toyota supply chain should be altered to avoid the worst consequences of natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis. 

Companies like Toyota and TRQSS should implement the following techniques to improve supply chain resiliency. To begin, they should increase transparency by reducing fraud and errors in supply chain management methods. Transparency will assist in the reduction of financial losses. The alternative technique is real-time inventory management, which involves the use of ERP software to deliver real-time inventory data. The other technique entails keeping track of vendor performance, which aids in vendor negotiations. Finally, the implementation of Just-in-time inventory management reduces inventory costs by lowering overhead costs as a result of communication errors. 

3. How does the existence and utilization of temporary workers affect the ethical behaviour of the organization? How might this be addressed? 

Temporary workers will be hired to assist the company in meeting some short-term goals and demands for services and products, but will not have the status or qualities of a permanent employee. Temporary workers are unable to form teams and are uncommitted to the company. Due to a lack of dedication, this personnel are not responsible for assuring the organization's quality. In the workplace, commitment and consistency are ethical activities. 

To address this, managers should be responsible for fostering teamwork among all employees and increasing workplace commitment. TRQSS calculated their weekly labour requirements based on firm orders. If a workforce reduction is required, it will be done in reverse seniority, with the lowest-ranking associates being laid off first. If these associates worked in areas where demand was still high, the higher-ranking associates who remained would be moved to the areas where they were needed. This posed a potential training issue if the transferred employees' skill set did not fully fit the job's criteria; yet, management would adhere to the guideline. 

References: 

https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-it-about-earthquake-causes-a-tsunami?qt news_science_products=0#qt-news_science_products 

https://earthweb.ess.washington.edu/tsunami/general/physics/earthquake.html 

https://engineering.wayne.edu/ise/programs/case_-_dolsen_ global_effect_of_a_natural_disaster_on_a_lean_supply_network.pdf 

Remarkably, most of the structures in that densely populated city were remarkably unscathed, a testament to Japanese earthquake-resistant construction techniques. The earthquake, however, was responsible for the formation of a massive tsunami that erupted just a few miles off the northeast shore of Honshu's main island. The tsunami arrived on the island swiftly, its force and scale exceeding any seawalls that had been built to safeguard the island. The important port of Sendai and other small towns and villages along the coast were destroyed.

TRQSS supplied seat belts to Toyota and other Japanese vehicles in North America. TRQSS was owned by Tokai Rika Co., a Toyota group company based in Aichi, Japan. As a result, Toyota was TRQSS' major customer, and TRQSS supplied product to all of Toyota's North American assembly plants. TRQSS was a fairly proficient practitioner of the widely benchmarked Toyota Production System (TPS) for a North American supplier, and it functioned with extremely little finished goods inventory (FGI) in relation to the volume of output supplied per day.

PFA