Benchmark Quality Control
Could there conceivably be a political agenda lurking in the background over Toyota's recent blame and shame?There are those who find it peculiar that Toyota is being given such a hard time by the U.S. Congress, that the company's good name for producing a quality product is being smeared as a result of a routine issue such as a recall. The truth is, car manufacturers all experience recall embarrassments; none of them is immune from such events. And many of them, particularly the G3, have produced vehicles that proved be extremely dangerous in their performance.
A short list of major recalls would have to include the "exploding" Ford Pintos with their 1970s recalls after 27 deaths, the GM recall in 1981 as a result of loose bolts causing steering problems; GM in another 3.1-million vehicle recall with faulty axles and the potential for wheels falling off in 1984, and the 1995 recall of 3.7 million cars for faulty seat belts, and Ford's 8.6 million recall in 1996 as a result of faulty ignition switches.
No other car manufacturer has been as pilloried as the Toyota Motor Company has been of late. Toyota overtook General Motors as the world's top motor car manufacturer. It did so on the basis of its sales' events; the figures told the story. Because the company was able to manufacture vehicles that were superior in operation, mechanical quality, gas consumption, and reliability than those produced by Ford, Chrysler and GM.
They owned the podium because they strove to achieve it, and they achieved it by their superior production, by the level of their quality control, by their reputation. And now that reputation lies, if not quite in shreds, then close to it. through a clearly concerted U.S.-led effort to destroy it. And the grandson of the original manufactory, Akio Toyoda, Toyota's new CEO, has been humbled in a manner no Japanese of distinction has had to suffer before.
He agreed to travel to the United States to be questioned at the invitation of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He submitted to the procedure of aggressive questioning and he testified in as honourable a manner as possible, under the circumstances. He was set before the pitbulls of American-style industrial protectionism.
He and his company had the unmitigated gall to contest the supremacy of U.S. vehicle manufacturers. And he paid the price, although he maintained his dignity while his questioners had none to maintain. This political process was led by a government whose administration literally bought into the industry, owning a majority stake in GM and a nice chunk of Chrysler.
It's a bit of a toss-up; flagellate a highly successful foreign manufacturer which has invested heavily in North America and employs thousands of North Americans from its manufacturing plants to the vehicle sales outlets, to the mechanics employed, or diminish their stake in the United States (and likely within Canada as well) by decreasing their sales through implied lack of trust, and advantage U.S. manufacturers who will take up the employment slack.
The Big 3 U.S. manufacturers must be beside themselves with gleeful triumph. All they had to do was sit back - hope the public would not remember their own recalls in the past due to accidents and road deaths, more than equal, in fact outdistancing those claimed by Toyota owners complaining of runaway vehicles due to 'sticky pedals', or computer glitches - and roast their competitor beyond recuperation.
They only wish. If Toyota congratulated itself for advantaging itself, saving millions by not advancing a total recall and internal memos prove it, they have done what all other manufacturers engage in from the tobacco industry to the vehicle industry before them. It's U.S.-style, no-holds-barred free market capitalism. Some of the accidents being handily linked to Toyota's recall are interesting.
In that they may reflect not only on occasion that something mechanical may be awry, but also, in some instances, that drivers are not as well schooled in the art of competent and careful driving as they assume themselves to be. Those same drivers who, instead of concentrating on how they might discern the problem and cope with it, haul out cellphones and dial emergency or loved ones.
Isn't it odd that drivers imperil one another, and the public by speaking on cellphones (either in hand or remotely) while executing the niceties of mechanical driving positions. And that when they find themselves in potential danger because suddenly their vehicle appears to be out of control (their control of the vehicle somehow impaired) that same cell phone is involved.
Mr. Toyoda ate humble pie. He absorbed what could only be interpreted as bullying abuse from those questioning, or hurling accusations of deliberate wrong-doing at him, and he did it out of pride in the quality product his company produces. Even quality occasionally has problems that have to be solved; no process is immune from them.
Labels: Political Realities, Technology, Traditions
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, February 28, 2010
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