Lean times for Toyota
1 min read
Toyota, the world's largest car maker, is a byword for quality and production efficiency. The Toyota Production System is the basis of today's widely employed lean manufacturing, while its cars often win accolades in surveys.
The company's status makes its problems big news, while its apparent tardy response to acceleration and braking issues has amplified them – complaints can be tracked back to 2003, alleged The Detroit Free Press, while reports indicate that a deal with US road safety regulators was struck last year to minimise recalls, according to The Times on 22 February. Toyota now says it may have grown too fast and lost sight of its values – "Toyota's priority has traditionally been: first, safety; second, quality; and third, volume. These priorities became confused," said Akio Toyoda, the company's president two days later.
Ahead of this, commentators cited lean manufacturing, common usage of parts and management structure as offenders. On the first two, the pursuit of lean at design and purchasing levels leads to common designs. Get it wrong and the problem is magnified.
On management, The Economist highlighted that Toyota's board is composed of 29 Japanese men — all of them Toyota insiders, none independent; and said lack of willingness to transmit bad news upwards – a cultural/career no-no – hampered recognition of a growing problem.
However, regarding the actual level of recall – more than 8 million vehicles globally –the Institution of Mechanical Engineer's director of engineering, Dr Colin Brown, interviewed on the BBC's Material World programme, refused to get excited. "In the UK, you are getting about 150 recalls a year – a million vehicles – many you don't hear about [in the media]; modifications are made to make them slightly safer, slightly better, slight improvements…this is absolutely normal; within the normal behaviour of cars," he explained. "This will die down in a short period of time." Of the Prius 3's ABS software issue, in particular, he noted that this was a reflection of the necessarily increasing complexity required to deliver economy and eco-friendliness.
So, while something has clearly gone very wrong, the fundamentals of lean surely remain sound; if they don't, it won't only be Toyota we hear about.
First published in Machinery, March 2010
