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Quality Concerns
Toyota slows delevopment process to preserve reputation

By MARK RECHTIN | AUTOMOTIVE NEWS

AutoWeek | Updated: 06/25/07, 8:50 am et

PHOENIX -- Worried about slipping quality, Toyota is slowing down its product development.

Toyota Motor Corp. will build more prototype vehicles, hire more engineers and spend more money in an effort to ensure that quality doesn't slip. The company also will take more time between project approval and production of the first salable vehicle.

For several years, Toyota has taken pride in reducing vehicle development time and adopting time-saving innovations such as virtual prototypes. But those measures have lowered the quality of Toyota vehicles, engineers and executives acknowledge.

"We were missing our internal targets," said Bob Carter, Toyota Division general manager. "We need to push that quality envelope."

The new procedures won't delay the launch of any new or redesigned products. Executives say they will start vehicle programs a few months earlier. All Toyota, Lexus and Scion vehicles will be subject to the new procedures.

In 2005, Toyota's vehicle recalls hit an all-time high. Recent launches of the Toyota Avalon, Camry and Tundra have suffered minor mechanical problems. And large-scale problems - such as millions of potentially faulty truck ball joints and sludged engines - have Toyota executives worried. As a result, speed to market is now taking a back seat to quality.

The initiative, called Customer First, is the vision of Toyota Motor President Katsuaki Watanabe. Last August, he gave Toyota's top engineers an ultimatum to improve vehicle quality by creating a better product development process.

Any idea to improve quality was open to discussion. Long-denied requests for more time, money and personnel were approved. The first vehicle to be affected was the 2008 Toyota Highlander, which arrives in showrooms in August.

Yukihiro Okane, the executive chief engineer for the Camry platform, which spawns the Highlander and Avalon, says changing the old process was difficult but necessary.

"Everyone felt like we were lacking in resources," Okane said at the press preview for the 2008 Highlander. "Vehicles were becoming more complex, and we needed to revamp the engineering and manufacturing process to address this complexity."

But Okane acknowledges that Customer First is "a costly, time-consuming process that ran counter to an established agenda of cutting costs, manpower and development time."

Faster process

Despite the increased attention to detail, the redesigned Highlander went from design freeze to Job 1 in 17 months, compared with 24 months for the previous-generation Highlander.

More engineers were assigned to the new Highlander, which sped up the process.

But Okane says the 17-month period was longer than he was originally expected to take for development.

Toyota says the new process will add a few months to the typical development time of a new or redesigned vehicle. Product development times vary depending on the complexity of the model and platform involved.

Derivatives of existing platforms, such as the Scion tC derived from the European Toyota Avensis platform, took just 13 months from design freeze to Job 1.

Complex vehicles with a new platform and powertrain can take 30 months or more for the same process.

Under the new process, Okane says, getting the original engineering blueprints right is a crucial, though seemingly obvious, step.

Although the computerized blueprints can be adjusted, it is expensive and time-consuming. Okane says it is better to spend more time the first time around.

"Even a tiny fault or misdrawing might make a problem in prototyping or manufacturing or parts testing, and we would have to rewrite the blueprint again," Okane says. "Too many times, blueprints were used as trial and error, making it difficult to resolve issues."

More mules

Mike O'Brien, a veteran Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. product planner, expects more emphasis on the evaluation phase of product development.

That means Toyota will build more early prototypes, using mules to evaluate road feel and validate the locations of switches and controls.

If an engineering flaw or conflict is discovered in an early prototype, it can be modified before final tooling is ordered, O'Brien says.

Don Esmond, Toyota Motor Sales' senior vice president of automotive operations, says Toyota was worried about losing its leadership position in the quality wars.

"We reallocated our resources to get quality back under control," Esmond says. "We need to stay the leader and increase the gap again."

Any idea to improve quality was open to discussion. Long-denied requests for more time, money and personnel were approved. The first vehicle to be affected was the 2008 Toyota Highlander, which arrives in showrooms in August.