Harry Stoffer, Contributor
Paranoia, the experts say, is what drives Toyota.
BEHIND TOYOTA'S reputation for quality is this: a deep-seated fear of failure.
"We are kind of paranoid," says Dennis Cuneo, senior vice- president of Toyota Motor North America Inc. "You're going along, and things are going quite well, and you're always thinking: 'What could go wrong?'"
Industry watchers have
wondered when the relentless growth of Toyota's manufacturing in North America would start to undermine the quality and
reliability of its vehicles. The company's leaders have the same concern, Cuneo says.
Toyota and Lexus divisions still comfortably exceed industry averages in such measures as J.D. Power and Associates' Initial Quality Study and Vehicle Dependability Index Study, and surveys by Consumer Reports magazine.
But the quality gap is closing as Toyota's competitors catch up. And recalls of Toyota cars and trucks spiked during the past two years.
ENSURING QUALITY
To keep ahead of the pack, Toyota has new programmes to track supplier performance, especially on vehicle launches. At its new production support centre in Georgetown, Kentucky, employees of every North American plant are trained in Toyota techniques. Those employees, in turn, update co-workers in their home plants.
The California experiment showed that Toyota could apply its quality methods successfully to a plant with US. workers in that case, unionised workers.
Still, U.S. recalls of Toyota cars and trucks rose more than tenfold from 2003 to 2005, to more than 2.2 million vehicles. Some critics, especially competitors, called that development a sign that ToyotaÕs steady expansion finally had dented its signature attribute: its reputation for exceptional quality.
But recalls are an imperfect measure of overall quality. Nearly half the Toyota recalls last year stemmed from a single repair of a steering relay rod, which can crack under extreme steering manoeuvres.
SO-SO SCION
One taint for Toyota: Vehicles from Scion, the companyÕs new youth-oriented brand, scored worse than the industry average last year in PowerÕs Initial Quality Study. The study focuses on problems consumers report with their new vehicles during the first three months of ownership. Scion vehicles are assembled in Japan.
Some analysts say the highly configurable nature of Scions creates more opportunities for owner complaints. Toyota argues that ScionÕs target audience of tech-savvy young consumers has high expectations.
RECORD FOR QUALITY
There are countertrends, albeit limited. In 2002, Toyota Division beat the industry average by 20 per cent in the Initial Quality Study. Last year, that advantage shrank to 10 per cent.
Similarly, Toyota Division was 22 per cent better than the industry average in Power's 2002 Vehicle Dependability Index Study, which measures vehicle quality after four to five years of ownership. In the 2005 study, Toyota was 18 per cent better.
So far, other auto makers generally have not duplicated Toyota's record for quality. One exception cited is the GM plant in Lansing, Michigan, that builds the Cadillac CTS and STS. That factory has adopted Toyota-like methods successfully.
For its annual auto issue, published this month, Consumer Reports compiled complaint data for eight model years from owners of all kinds of vehicles. The object was to show which companiesÕ vehicles perform best over time.
The data show that 8-year-old Toyotas are about as reliable as 3-year-old Ford Motor and Chrysler group cars and trucks and 2-year-old Volkswagen AG vehicles, Consumers Union says.
Source: www.autonews.com
