Toyota: 'Recall Is Not A Four-Letter Word'

Toyota: 'Recall Is Not A Four-Letter Word'

By Bill Visnic August 5, 2010

There are 40 million Toyota-made vehicles on the road using electronically controlled throttles and despite the efforts of a horde of independent testers and a virtual army of the company's own engineers, nobody's been able to find anything wrong with the technology typically pointed to as the "likely" cause for unintended acceleration, said Steve St. Angelo, the American executive leading Toyota's new North American Quality Task Force.

 Speaking at the Center for Automotive Research's Management Briefing Seminars today in Traverse City, MI, St. Angelo, vice president of Toyota Engineering and Manufacturing North America Inc. and chief quality officer for the Quality Task Force, said everyone from a newly constituted Quality Advisory Panel seeded by high-profile names to individual assembly-line workers is engaged in the company's effort to assure a higher level of quality - and reassure Toyota's customers, who after Toyota's highly publicized quality and safety-related recalls apparently have been availing themselves of other options.

But St. Angelo was quick and direct in pointing out that no link has been made between Toyota's electronically controlled throttles and the numerous reports of unintended acceleration that captivated American consumers and the American news media starting late last year.

Although there is zero evidence of the electronic gremlins many were convinced were the source of unintended acceleration, St. Angelo said Toyota is remaining committed to both internal and third-party examination of electronically controlled throttles.

Recalls Hurt But Cleanse?

St. Angelo said the unintended-acceleration crisis led the company to redouble its quality and safety practices and to the creation of several new entities to charged with keeping the company on message in those areas. He said Toyota also is moving to provide new autonomy to its regional operations.

And he admits, "We learned some important lessons at Toyota about the need to listen to our customers. The results of that are reflected in everything we're doing differently and better today."

Specifically, he said Toyota is:

- Listening "much more closely" to customers and more quickly responding to their concerns.

- Increasing communication with customers about advanced safety technology to improve understanding of components such as electronically controlled throttles.

- Making a majority investment in advanced safety technologies, not the least of which is a brake override system that will be standard equipment on all Toyota and Lexus vehicles by the end of this year.

But St. Angelo stressed in the speech that although Toyota has never let cost dictate its actions in relations to recalls - he said that just prior to the sticky-pedal, North American leaders made the decision in 15 minutes to halt production on 11 assembly lines - "we're also moving faster and more aggressively to conduct recalls."

He said initiatives such as the formation of the new Swift Market Analysis Response Teams and the Quality Advisory Panel with high-profile membership such as former Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater, were adopted to ensure new levels of quality.

"Let me make this clear," St. Angelo stressed at the conference, 'Recall' is not a four-letter word.

"Of course," he added, "it's never good news when a safety issue emerges regarding anyone's products.  But real-time quality support after sale is just as vital as quality in design and quality in manufacturing. At Toyota, we're keenly aware of this.  And it's my job to make sure we act on this in North America."

The SMART teams, for example, have conducted more than 4,000 on-site investigations of customer vehicles. The teams, staffed by 140 quality engineers and 100 field engineers and technicians, have examined and inspected the vehicles but have found no evidence of trouble with electronic throttle control.

More Autonomy, More Americans

St. Angelo said another lesson learned was that leadership in various world markets needed more responsibility and more autonomy to make the kind of decisions that might have averted situations such as the sticky-pedal recall.

To that end, he noted that North America now has "more authority on safety-related recalls and other safety-related issues."

And, in perhaps the most telling and symbolic move, Toyota is installing Americans in place of Japanese executives in key North American posts. This includes chief engineers responsible for almost all major decisions about coming new models.

American executives, St. Angelo said, are now running Toyota's assembly plants in Indiana and Texas and an American was just named chief engineer for the Tundra fullsize pickup truck.

"These are all local executives who know their local markets," St. Angelo said.

One example of how seriously the aftereffects of sticky pedals and unintended acceleration are being taken by everyone throughout the company, St. Angelo said that the number of long-established assembly line "quality circles" has drastically increased. In the past, about 500 of these occurred in an assembly plant every year - already this year, there have been more than double that amount.

"About 40-percent of our North American team members have volunteered to take part because they take this personally and they want to help," he said. 

"History shows that out of extraordinary circumstances like our own, better practices often emerge," said St. Angelo.

 

Bill Visnic:  is an AutoObserver Senior Editor. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter