TMAP-EM’s organizational structure is divided into 3 main categories named as group, division and department. Generally, the structure of TMAP-EM is broken down into 7 main business groups which are administrative, marketing and sales, production and purchasing, manufacturing support, customer service, quality, and technical center. From these 7 business groups, they are separated into 26 divisions and 58 departments
According to new management system introduced in 2003, most of members of the board in TMAP-EM are the same persons that are present in the management board of TMC. Specifically, the senior managing director of TMC, Mr. Koichi Ina, is simultaneously present as Chairman of TMAP-EM Furthermore, Mr. Ryoichi Sasaki, managing officer in TMC in charge of Asia, Oceania & Middle East Project Division also held a position of the president of TMAP-EM and TMAP-MS, which are the Asia pacific regional headquarter. Beside, most of directors of TMAP-EM are concurrently held as managing officer in TMC.
In group level of TMAP-EM, the executive vice president of each business group held by Japanese expatriate who is simultaneously remain in managerial position of TMAP-MS apart from manufacturing support group and technical center group. The manufacturing support group does not directly deal with TMAP-MS but rather directly coordinate with TMT. However, for Technical Center group, executives are responsible in technical center group only. In the division level, the vice president of each divisions, who mostly are Japanese, function in two managing role, for instance, some of them handle both TMAP-EM and TMAP-MS and some of them hold for TMAP-EM and TMT. In addition, there are several TMT’s management members that present as executive advisor and also executive managing coordinator in many of TMAP-EM’s division. Besides, in department level, Japanese still is the majority of managerial position. Though, there are some departments that managed by Thai managers, there are still Japanese managers also present as coordinators in specified department. For instance, in purchase division that is splitted into three main departments, Japanese is the vice president of the purchase division with Thai general managers in these three departments but Japanese expatriates also remain as the senior managing coordinator in each of these three departments.
Likewise, the administrative structure of TMT is also going along with the new system in which the managing officer in TMC will present in each specific division in order to get the real understanding of situation and provide timely decision making. For instance, Ryoichi Sasaki who is concurrently help position of managing officer in TMC and president of Toyota Asia Pacific regional headquarter also is presently the director of TMT. Recently, TMC announce the newly appoint managing officers one of whom is Mitsuhiro Sonoda who also currently remains in the position as president of TMT. In the restructuring of Toyota’s organization, the managing officer who are responsible for daily operation in specific arena or division report to senior managing directors. Moreover, as stated earlier that some of the management members of TMAP-EM also responsible in the management team of TMT both executive vice president, and vice president. With this new management system, TMT as well as other affiliates in Asian region can achieve timely decision-making for day-to-day operation.
After collecting interviews by employees from various departments and positions within Toyota’s subsidiaries, we found that every department has some Japanese staffs working together with Thai staffs mainly in the coordinator role. The coordinator role is an adviser for technical information and making connection network among Toyota group to help communication flow smoothly. Usually some important information from TMC sent directly to Japanese staffs that are coordinator and will be forwarded to Thai people later. Regarding decision making, employees generally have an authority to make a decision for some daily operation with limitation based on their position. However, the decision making with cases beside daily operation, generally in important cases Thai staffs will make consensus with Japanese coordinator and report to top management level, board of management or TMC. Overall, employees have to deal with other subsidiaries for their work for example they have to contact to the same department in TMC or other subsidiaries for some information and they deal with other departments within their company also. They are transferred to Japan for working in same department as when they work in Thailand and it is possible for other staffs from other companies to be transferred to their department. They describe that this is a transfer system for broaden their perspective and improve their skill before being promoted to next higher career path.
As state earlier that the establishment of TMAP-EM as regional headquarters takes place after the institutionalized of TMT, several departments that were previously under TMT were transferred to TMAP-EM, for example production planning, purchasing, logistic, support manufacturing, engineering, marketing and sales and human resource management. The purchase division that firstly underneath TMT and buy component only for Thailand was transformed to be supervised by TMAP-EM and carry out the component buying for other countries in Asian region as well. However, there are still some departments that hold positions concurrently in both TMAP-EM and TMT such as human resource department but the human resource department of TMT account only for Thailand operation but TMAP-EM will responsible for Asian region. Though, TMC has decentralized some functions to TMAPEM, but TMAP-EM is just institutionalized in 2007 that still not ready to undertake full responsibility as regional headquarter, therefore TMC will continue to provide support to Asian subsidiaries that TMAP-EM is still not well equipped. But in the near future, TMAP will position as regional headquarters that fully support Asian region.