Toyota's freshly-minted CEO breaks cover in a Detroit News (DTN) profile with a home-town friendly headline: "Criticism shadows Toyota's success." The DTN repeats the charges: environmental insensitivity (for fighting higher CAFE standards) and quality control problems (that led to the Camry's ejection from Consumer Reports' recommended list). The blows go lower. "Unusually for Toyota, its U.S. sales growth for 2007 is running behind its forecasts, and its new Tundra's slow start in a slumping pickup market is viewed as further evidence of the automaker's fallibility." Rubbish. Along with every other U.S. automaker, Toyota has revised its forecasts to account for a shrinking new car market– but it still predicts market share growth. And while the Tundra's first year sales target of 200k units looks a bit dicey (unless they REALLY blow-out the price), they've sold 162k year-to-date. More importantly, check out Lentz 'tude: "What has always made Toyota strong is this sense of kaizen," Lentz said, referring to a tenet of the Toyota Way that means continuous improvement. "We have to use whatever shortcomings or criticisms we have as a way to re-energize that kaizen within our culture, to make sure that we fix issues that we have before they become targets of our critics." Are you listening Mr. Lutz?
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Nope, don’t think Lutz is listening. He practises Continuous Obfuscation, not Improvement.
What is Kaizen?
Kaizen means “improvement”. Kaizen strategy calls for never-ending efforts for improvement involving everyone in the organization – managers and workers alike.
Kaizen and Management
Management has two major components:
1.
maintenance, and
2.
improvement.
The objective of the maintenance function is to maintain current technological, managerial, and operating standards. The improvement function is aimed at improving current standards.
Under the maintenance function, the management must first establish policies, rules, directives and standard operating procedures (SOPs) and then work towards ensuring that everybody follows SOP. The latter is achieved through a combination of discipline and human resource development measures.
Under the improvement function, management works continuously towards revising the current standards, once they have been mastered, and establishing higher ones. Improvement can be broken down between innovation and Kaizen. Innovation involves a drastic improvement in the existing process and requires large investments. Kaizen signifies small improvements as a result of coordinated continuous efforts by all employees.
And it is precisely thsi attitude which has made Toyota GM’s biggest nightmare. Toyota are profitable, popular with customers, the size of GM and have a strong brand loyalty.
If you concetrate on building the best product you can, the customers will come.
Mr Lutz is shaping up to be a rather pathetic figure. I gather he was once revered, but now he is showing signs of (professional) senility and corporate arrogance.
If GM showed a little more humility, then maybe customers would warm to them?
Uh,uh it seems the press is turning it venom,towards Toyota.Toyota reacts,lets try and fix the problems,while running flat out.Toyota has got a do this while maintaining profit and sales.All this in a very tough market.
Next thing you know you got tree huggers,with cameras at the L.A show.Nut gets to close with camera to your honking big SUV.Your manager has a weak moment,and ” bumps” the camera dude on to his butt.
Then your on you tube.
For all intents and purposes,Toyota is the lead dog.Problem being the other dogs want to bite the lead dog on the ass.
I’m not even sure Bob “the Putz” Lutz *can* hear.
Considering how old he is, and how senile he has shown himself to be I wouldn’t be surprised if his hearing is sub-par.
Also a small correction: this is Toyota USA’s freshly minted CEO. Watanabe remains CEO of the company as a whole.
Also an important excerpt from the article:
In 2005, soon after becoming CEO of Toyota, Katsuaki Watanabe ordered a quality initiative that has produced encouraging results internally, Lentz said. “Whether it’s plant quality, whether it’s warranty data, the numbers look very, very good.”
The new Highlander crossover SUV launched in the summer, the first vehicle to go through the process, “appears to be the highest quality Toyota product we’ve ever launched,” he said.
Toyota quality dropping? Toyota becoming arrogant? Where are all the Toyota critics that said these things? Please, I invite and encourage Toyota critics to find fault with the fact that Toyota is being very serious regarding it’s quality problems.
Some things never change I guess. It seems that some people live in a sort of alternate universe, where Toyota is in serious trouble and things are looking great for GM. Meanwhile, in *our* universe in reality, Toyota is looking better than ever and GM continues to stumble and falter.
Some things never change I guess. It seems that some people live in a sort of alternate universe, where Toyota is in serious trouble and things are looking great for GM. Meanwhile, in *our* universe in reality, Toyota is looking better than ever and GM continues to stumble and falter.
Ah that just human nature! I sure when the Russinas were camping on the Oder and Vistuala there were still a few Germans in Berlin that believed the German Wehrmacht was going to save the day.
So, you want to buy stock in an automotive company? Do you buy into the company that has leaders like Lentz? Or do you want stock in the guys who keep coming up with more BS and excuses on a daily basis?
Kudoos to Mr. Lentz for his good leadership. That is the kind of statement made by champions. It would seem that Toyota is even making better managers than the 2.8.
Ahhhh, the good old days…. Today is Mid-Feb 2010…