Toyota recall spoils Kaizen theory
This was a recurring observation of mine for the entire time that I’ve been reading newspapers since I was a kid. Why can’t motoring columnists write something (at least from time to time) against car companies and their suppliers, if needed?
Are they afraid to lose their advertising space or their regular pleasure visits to Japan, the United States, or to someplace? I mean, why force a business management columnist like me to do the job for them?
The latest news said it all. The Associated Press bannered on July 19 a news item—”Toyota recalls 268,000 cars over faulty engine” resulting to Japan’s transport ministry issuing last Friday a rebuke “to improve its system for responding to faulty vehicles following police allegations of a defect cover-up” this one, according to AFP.
What’s painful for me personally is the fact that I bought a brand-new Toyota Innova only on May 29. I chose Toyota for so many reasons, not necessarily to include my professional association with some local Toyota executives and my being an understudy of Masaaki Imai, the Japanese who popularized kaizen (continuous improvement) the world over.
It is simply because I teach a collegiate course on productivity management that in every step of the way, I give Toyota examples to illustrate the theoretical kicks that you and I read from textbooks. (That’s how I do with what I preach. Not only with Toyota, when I teach Six Sigma, you can readily guess that my mobile phone is surely a Motorola or when we Benchmark, the first thing that comes to mind is Xerox.)
That’s why I can’t imagine this thing happening to me. Sooner than I reached the first 1,000-kilometer check-up, my Innova has shown some kinks that are unusual for a brand-new vehicle.
This is not to mention the poor customer service that I got from Toyota Alabang when I was trying to buy that vehicle at the time when I felt like an intruder for trying to give money to this (four letter word) dealer! But that’s another story that should fill twelve classic volumes in Anger Management.
I keep reading from somewhere that Toyota have already figured out how to beat General Motors. I’m sorry to say that Filipino workers will make it difficult for Toyota and to think that we’re not talking here of unionism, at least not yet.
Really, as I write this column, I feel like in a state of seething semi-homicidal rage. Of course, I am exaggerating slightly. But that’s what it felt like teaching all the good things about Toyota and here you are—straight in the face being bamboozled left and right by this sad experience.
I can imagine that Taiichi Ohno, the then Toyota high official who taught Imai kaizen’s secret is now turning from his grave. Now I know, those who fail to learn from the past is condemned to repeat history class.
So Toyota must learn to do something extraordinary than sleep on their kaizen-shaped laurels. Better still, they have to stop doing nemawashii (slow consensual decision-making process) and start redefining customer satisfaction where it matters the most at the soonest possible time.
C’mon, boys! Don’t allow yourself to screw up. I mean—one big reason for the success of Toyota is kaizen. We know that. In my case, I’ve visited Toyota’s powerhouses both in Santa Rosa and Nagoya for several times in the past to confirm what we’ve learned from Ohno and Imai down to their corporate descendants.
I saw enough to figure out Toyota’s open secrets. They’ve mechanical and electronic robots all over. When a piece of steel came under the robots, sooner than you can imagine, it became into a special auto shape. The other secret is—their employees are required to put up an X number of good ideas a year to identify a problem and solve it at the same time.
Then we wonder—why a single recall can spoil a good kaizen argument.
Rey Elbo is a business consultant specializing on human resources and total quality management as a fused specialty. Readers’ feedback may be sent to reyelbo@pworld.net.ph or 0919-808-7023.
