At work last week, one of our VP’s sent out a weekly ‘internal operations’ update. In this update he mentioned the latest ‘quality issue’ that has arisen within Toyota. (the gas pedals that stick) He mentioned the issues and pulled a few comparisons out that might apply to our company as well as other companies. I had been following Toyota since the late 1990’s and writing articles about the Japanese automakers for several publications. So needless to say, his mention of the most recent Toyota episodes aroused my interest.
His email started quite a bit of debate among the folks at our business. Many people replied with various opinions and feedback. I read an article just this morning that mentioned the fact that Toyota has recently engaged in cost cutting initiatives and that these initiatives have caused easily noticed deficiencies within their automotive lines. The article mentioned the differences in the RAV4 line which at first appears to be ‘more value for the money’ but after closer observation it becomes obvious that the materials have become cheaper and that the fit & finish has been sacrificed. (the opinion of the article and not necessarily my own)
As I listen to the folks at my company, read the articles and speak with friends of mine that work within some of the Japanese automaker companies I realize how easy it is for us to ‘jump on the bandwagon’ and pontificate about these companies such as Toyota when they suffer a ‘hit’ like this. (and make no mistake, this will hurt Toyota…..even if only in the short term)
The real truth of the matter is that 85% of the companies in America (and probably in the world) are doing the same things that will lead us to the same results. Have you tried finding a company in this economy that is not attempting to trim internal costs? We have collectively cut our experienced labor force and we trim every single process that we can trim. The areas in which we trim and still can not make it work for a ‘predetermined $$$ amount’, we simply find a vendor (or Country) in which the part can be made cheaper. We have become a society that must make it cheaper and sell it for more.
Did you notice the last time you bought a bag of snack chips how many were in the bag? Did the price change when the company started placing fewer chips in the bag?
Quality is a real ‘Science’ and many good men & women have argued and fought over the real definition of quality. Oftentimes an engineer will define quality in a different way than the salesman selling the product. Sadly, most of our companies define ‘quality’ from within………I submit that our customer should define the vast majority of our ‘quality equation’……….and we must remember that quality comes with a price.
We can browse back through world history and see that within any manufacturing process or product line quality always comes at a premium. Toyota in the early years was built upon quality and with the assistance of a lean (not to be confused with attempts to strip a company from within and do the job with less people working more hours) manufacturing attitude. I suspect we will find, as has been the case nearly 95% of the time in the history of the automobile industry , that somewhere along the way Toyota became more concerned with cutting cost and increasing profit margins than they did with making a quality product.
This is a tough lesson and I find that often times the people who ‘laugh the loudest’ when these things happen to a company are guilty of the same exact way of thinking!
I challenge you to search deep within your organizations and see if every single internal operation adds quality & value to your product. If it does not, you are setting yourself up for future failure. Quality is not a ‘meeting’ or a ‘group of people’ or even a ‘program’ within an organization………but rather, much like safety…….quality must be a lifestyle. We must live it…..we must not be guilty of cloaking ourselves in ‘quality’ as we enter our places of business and leaving it at the door on our way out……we must walk the talk for if we do not it will be glaringly obvious to those who look at us…..and most importantly the end user suffers in the long run…….and the end user is where our paychecks ultimately come from!
Your thoughts?
kml
2010
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