Quality

647 Words2 Pages

Toyota was once known for its top quality, safety, and world renowned processes. It was one of the top automobile manufactures in the world. Toyota was one of the first to introduce a 36 thousand mile bumper to bumper warranty. This is something of a standard now-and-day, but it was something revolutionary when introduced in 1988. Toyota was part of some of the major methods of quality management. It was on the leading edge of Japanese developed Total Quality Control (TQC) and Six Sigma (Cole, 2011). Toyota originated and perfected TPS (Toyota Production System). Toyota was the company that all others wanted to emulate; it was their culture and processes that everyone else reached for, not just auto companies (The Economist, 2005). In 2001 Toyota was run on the basis of 14 principles known as, “The Toyota Way”. In 2007 it passed GM as the largest automaker (Heller & Darling, 2012). It was during this time that the company giant was brought down by the benchmark that it had once set; its quality.
Toyota’s crisis was slowly brewing back in 2007. It recalled 55,000 floor mats because of a defect and possibility of getting the gas pedal stuck. Then in 2009 it received the first of its major blows to its brand; a Lexus was reported to be accelerating out of control before it came to a fiery crash. All four occupants were killed and Toyota subsequently recalled 4.2 million of its vehicles. If this weren’t enough, the company failed to take full responsibility for the problems. It sent out letters saying that there were no defects. The NHTSA got involved saying that Toyota failed to address the underlying issue. (Heller & Darling, 2012)
Toyota recalled another 2.3 million vehicles in 2010 because of similar problems with the gas pedal. ...

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...e vigilant in maintaining practices and values that support high-quality production systems, even as they learn to adapt to emerging challenges. (Cole, 2011)

Works Cited

Chester Dawson and Yoshio Takahashi, “ Toyota Makes New Push to Avoid Recalls,” The Wall Street Journal, February 24,2011

Anatomy of Crisis Management: Lessons from the Infamous Toyota Case
Heller V.L., Darling J.R.
(2012) European Business Review, 24 (2) , pp. 151-168.

Cole, Robert E. "What Really Happened to Toyota?" MIT Sloan Management Review 52.4 (2011): 29-35. Web. 25 Feb. 2014

“Special Report: The Car Company in Front—Toyota,” The Economist 374(8411) (January 29, 2005): 73.

Thomas, D. (2010a), "Toyota recalls 2.3 million vehicles over sticking accelerator pedal", available at: www.miamiherald.com/2010/01/21/1438802/toyota-recalls-23-million-vehicles.html (accessed 15 March 2010).

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