Toyota Re-Introduces Quality By Committee

In that Wolfsburg car factory I had the honor to work for for more than 30 years, one of the many pearls of wisdom was: “Wenn man nicht mehr weiter weiss, gründet man nen Arbeitskreis.” If you are totally out of options, establish a committee.

Toyota seems to have taken that Teutonic haiku to heart. The Nikkei reports that Toyota Motor “has formed an expert panel, chaired by President Akio Toyoda, to analyze the potential risks throughout its global production and sales networks.”

As far as committees go, lean it won’t be. It will be a monster of a committee: “The president will be joined by executives ranked senior managing director and higher,” The Nikkei writes. ”The committee’s composition will change depending on the type and locality of a particular problem, and input from lawyers and consultants will be sought as warranted.”

For added redundancy, Toyota established a second committee. This one is tasked with “global quality.” According to Nikkei’s report, this one “will monitor quality issues concerning design, production and service, enabling the carmaker to quickly determine the need for recalls and voluntary repairs.”

Toyota must have read TTAC’s report a few days ago that bemoaned the loss of top-level quality-focused meetings shortly after Akio Toyoda took over early last year. While we have Toyota’s ear, let’s recommend one of VW’s better inventions, the “Schadenstisch” (damage table). In that circle, a failing part was literally put on a table, surrounded by a team of experts from various departments. At the end of the (often heated) discussion, someone had to take the part off the table. He and his department were then responsible for fixing the problem.

Toyota can pick up the idea without being blamed for copying: When Piech took over in 1993, he tried to introduce Toyota’s “kaizen” to VW. He failed. “Kaizen” was renamed “kontinuierlicher Verbesserungsprozess,” and was then quickly forgotten.