Where, if at all, does the current routine for handling defective seats deviate from the principles of the Toyota Production System?The way the current situation of defective seats is handled goes against the two principles of Toyota Production System (TPS). The first guiding principle of TPS is Just-in-Time (JIT) production. TPS aims to reduce cost by eliminating waste. Overproduction was considered waste of resources, warehouse storage space, material handlers, transportation trucks, computers to manage inventory, staff to maintain the computers and so on. Hence the first core principle of TPS was to produce only the needed product at the needed time. But with the increase in the number of defective cars inventory, the JIT principle was not followed. As the car was not being delivered to the customer in the time specified, it was hence a waste according to the TPS principle. The second guiding principle of TPS is jidoka, which insists on building in quality within the production process and stopping the production process when problems are discovered. Though the defective seats were identified, the production line was not halted and this was against the jidoka principle of TPS.TPS also heavily depended on human infrastructure. The production workers were encouraged to identify the problem by sticking to the facts and getting down to the root cause of the problem. They discussed the problem by asking the five whys to identify the solutions to the problem. Defiantly in the case of defective seats, the cars were accumulated off-line, i.e. the cars were allowed through the assembly lines despite the identification of the defective seats earlier on and then send to the Code 1 clinic area in case the defects were rectifiable. In case they were not, the cars were moved to the overflow parking area where it was kept till the new seats were delivered by the supplier. This led to incomplete orders and also resulted in overtime for the employees to fix the cars and maintain the productivity of the plant.