DECREASE WAITING TIME FOR A NEW CAR PURCHASE CASE STUDY: HONDA AUTOMOBILE (THAILAND)

Abstract

This paper aims to study the causes that affect customer waiting time for purchasing a new Honda car and find the recommendation to reduce it. The research was made by interviews about current operation processes, the time consumed and production conditions with staff and managers who work at Honda Automobile (Thailand) Co., Ltd. The study found that the causes of problems are CKD ordering lead time, production conditions of 30 units per set, information linkage and non-practical Kaizen and TQM. To solve the problems, Honda needs to order CKD by forecasting orders, set a new warehouse outside the factory and sub-sequence parts to be in line with customer orders, share information from dealers to suppliers, use one trailer for delivering cars to many dealers, and finally aim for quality Kaizen within the monitoring system. If the company implements all of the recommendations, the company will be able to reduce the current operation lead time by 3 months. KEY WORDS: Honda / Supply Chain Management / Enterprise Resource Management / Total Quality Management