Word: toyotas
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...they do. "We have to strengthen quality control," said Shinichi Sasaki, executive vice president for quality. It's a startling admission from a company that made reliability its quest. Toyota will fix its car problem soon. Restoring its reputation is going to take a lot longer...
Even as the company was catching the global No. 1, General Motors, the reputation of Toyota's cars was slipping. Spear, who apprenticed in its factories, says the problem was that the Toyota way--in which knowledge accumulated by élite cadres of engineers and assembly workers over many years is shared across the company--got diluted by the demands of production. "Even in the late '90s, people in Toyota would say, 'This is going to bite us in the ass,'" says Spear. "They just didn't know when...
Starting Sept. 29, the company recalled 4.9 million cars because of a floor mat that could come loose and jam down the gas pedal. Last month Toyota issued a recall of 2.3 million vehicles (most of which were in the earlier group) because of a fault with the pedal mechanism itself. Toyota has told drivers to remove the mats; its fix for the sticky pedal requires a free half-hour shop repair. The DOT has urged owners of recalled models to use caution and get to a dealer. Still unknown: whether an electronic problem is also a culprit in sudden...
...parable of Toyota is that the tortoise became the hare. Over decades, Toyota built its reputation and market share in tiny increments by way of its renowned continuous-improvement method. In the Toyota mantra, quality was always first because it led to lower costs, which would lead to higher market share. Eventually...
...1990s, Toyota set out to become the world's top auto company. Being the best and being the biggest created a tension that Toyota couldn't resolve. Says MIT operations expert Steven Spear: "If quality is first, it drives a certain set of behaviors. If market share is the goal, it drives a different set of behaviors...