Comments on: What Are Your Thoughts About Toyota’s Situation?

By: Narayan

Narayan — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 06:45:06 +0000

Yes. Toyota did the right thing.
If their PR was not adequate, it may be because that part had not been exercised enough.
Waiting for a PR position to be defined and in place before stopping production would be to compromise customer concerns.

By: Brian Campbell

Brian Campbell — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 15:11:46 +0000

I wrote Ron the original email that kicked off his blog post. Thanks Ron & LSS posters for the insightful discussion.

I belive in Toyota’s TPS/Lean, and practice TPS/Lean at my work as product engineer/manager. I believe Toyota will emerge stronger after this fiasco, as long as they take the needed steps to REBUILD TRUST among car buyers. I’m hoping the plethora of class action lawsuits hitting this week ($100million, $200 million, and higher) do not snowball… that could sink this fine company.

By: Ron Pereira

Ron Pereira — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:32:39 +0000

Well said, Jeremy. Thanks for the comment and keep fighting.

By: Jeremy Garner

Jeremy Garner — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:34:17 +0000

Well, hindsight is 20/20. We should have been more vigilant when questions first arose. I have heard a couple of different repsonses from consumers: There are some products/services that you’re just sold on. No matter who seems disgruntled, if you’re a delighted customer, there’s a gravity toward what you’ve grown to trust and love. Not to decrease the severity of the situation but some people are more prone to fear, others don’t waste their time fretting over statistical risks unless it happens to them directly. The bad usually comes before the better. It has been repeated in Toyota’s history that we thrive and press forward under adversity. It is impressive to me how Toyota has handled the recession. I am confident that we can learn from our mistakes, take ownership and move forward from this problem as well.

By: Paul Cary

Paul Cary — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:10:11 +0000

The news, talk radio, the blogs I visit daily have been buzzing with news of the Toyota recall. Is this a chance for GM and Ford to regain market share? Is Toyota in free fall? Thus far I believe there are a few ways to look at the situation: 1) Toyota has strayed, covered up, and reacted much to slowely damaging their immage imeasurably. 2) Toyota shut down factories, jumped on the problem and will rectify the situation maintaining brand loyalty and will go forward. 3) Toyota strayed from its core principles, did not react quick enough, and will use this as a case study for future continuous improvement.
Those of us who believe that TPS/lean is system within a culture of continuous improvement driven by a profound respect for people think that Toyota will have a temporary set back but will eventually emerge a better company. Most companies would recall the vehicals fix them and move on, Toyota however will view this defeat like a great athelete who after defeat will retreat, reflect, train harder, learn from the losss and emerge a stronger competitor. I would beware if I were GM or Ford and not underestimate Toyotas’ culture in their pursuit of perfection.

By: Bill Gordon

Bill Gordon — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 18:29:06 +0000

Toyota’s current actions in stopping vehicle production certainly reflect the application of one of the two pillars (Jidoka) of the Toyota Production System (TPS). However, I expect that Toyota briefly halted assembly operations when the problems originally surfaced to ensure materials met specifications and workers assembled parts to standards. But, since this problem did not occur on the production line, but rather while in use by customers, it could not easily isolate the root causes. I believe Toyota has approached this issue in a manner consistent with how it normally conducts business.

To understand better how Toyota is handling the problem of sudden acceleration, I suggest we look beyond the two pillars of the TPS (Just-in-Time and Jidoka) and consider Principles 12 and 13 of the Toyota Way (Liker, 2004).

Principle 12 (genchi genbutsu) teaches that one must go to the source, observe the problem, and make decisions by “verifying data rather than theorizing on the basis of what other people…tell you” (p. 40). I suspect this presented a challenge for people within Toyota, including high-level managers and executives, since they could not observe the event as it occurred and had difficulty recreating it. Current reporting suggests their analyses have uncovered a number of acceleration related issues with probably different root causes.

Principle 13 (nemawashi) guides Toyota’s management to “implement decisions rapidly” (p. 40) and cautiously only after considering all options and making a “decision slowly by consensus” (p.40). I suggest that the perceived delays in announcing vehicle recalls resulted from this time-consuming, consensus process. I believe in this case, it not only “broaden the search for solutions” (p. 40), it uncovered a number of different problems.

Despite all the bad PR, I suspicion that the pain experienced by Toyota today will further drive continuous improve (one of the pillars of the Toyota Way) and result in an even stronger position in the market.

Reference

Liker, J. K (2004). The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer. New York, NY: McGraw Hill

By: Linda

Linda — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:40:38 +0000

Toyota should stand tall as they did to the root cause – let’s see
Firestone = 119 deaths with Explorers – many lawsuits, much denial
Read about the Ford Pinto case at http://www.wfu.edu/~palmitar/Law&Valuation/Papers/1999/Leggett-pinto.html
Those are just two that come to my mind on the philosophy “we will fix it when someone sues us”. So Toyota should be hailed and praised for doing it before someone else said “you got to do this”.

By: Matt Hahn

Matt Hahn — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:03:47 +0000

I agree that Toyota will be stronger for this and I truly believe the weak ass so called “marketing” crap GM is pulling will further thrust them into the depths of business doom.

By: Laura

Laura — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:41:13 +0000

I was always told, “Bad PR is better than no PR”. All companies have recall nightmares, window blinds are can strangle young children and the company just puts a tag on it that says hazard. Toyota is will come out of this stronger than ever.

By: Hector Aquiles

Hector Aquiles — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:37:24 +0000

Coming for the Automotive Product Engineering field myself, I have to say they are handling the situation fine, they are actually sending some media adds to the public in the news paper about “temp pause” for their sales, this shows the commitment of Toyota for Quality and their commitment to safety. I was once an Brake Design Engineer myself, and as such I was very careful in any design development involvement, and it takes a lot of ethical work when negotiation brake design issues with other departments, however when situations were critical like a Brake recall , sense of urgency was the most important factor to address any solution technique. Toyota is expert at finding solutions, root causes, new improvements….and watch they sure will compensate their customers later, to ensure a fast come back, although this will mean more money down the pipe. It is hard times for Toyota now , same what happened with Ford for the Firestone tires, but they will get just fine if fine a quick and quality solution. I once read and article from the Lean Enterprise Institute, that is attached to or facebook site if you like to read it, its called ” Lean Beyond Toyota” worth reading.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lead-360/328359350650?v=app_2373072738&ref=search#/topic.php?uid=328359350650&topic=13841