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This Week’s Topic:
Lean Six Sigma and Standardization – Toyota's Recall
A January 30, Wall Street Journal article suggests that Toyota’s standardization efforts are partly to blame for the massive size of the current recall. Specifically, “… using common parts and designs across multiple product lines, and reducing the number of suppliers to procure parts in greater scale—can backfire when quality-control issues arise.”
So Is Standardization A Bad Strategy?
With all due respect to those who would suggest such an approach - and please pardon the technical jargon - but “What a bunch of hooey”. Quite frankly, we are surprised at even a hint of reacting in this way.
Certainly it has been painful for those of us who are true believers in Lean Six Sigma to watch Toyota struggle with its recent quality issues. There is no way to minimize the impact that this huge recall has on Toyota’s stellar reputation for quality. However, to suggest the solution to the problem is less standardization is exactly the wrong response.
Imagine what would happen if any auto manufacturer tried to limit risk by purposely creating a wide variety of subsystems such as accelerators, brakes, steering, transmissions and so forth.
First, the need to test and qualify multiple systems would mean that none of them would receive the same thorough evaluation as a single solution. The chances of one or more of them being a defective design would actually increase. Second, this would spawn hundreds of model permutations with the associated possibility of interactions. Third, with so many variations in the field it would most likely take longer to identify a serious problem as it developed. As a result, although no single recall might be as large, it is almost certain that the total number of defects would increase with less standardization.
One final observation: When the problem became clear, Toyota halted production at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. How many other manufacturers would have taken a different attitude of “We can’t afford to stop production – let’s just fix them later.” Even in the middle of a crisis, Toyota is demonstrating adherence to its Lean Six Sigma values.
Of course, this is only our opinion. We find this to be such an interesting debate that we have dedicated our blog to other views on this issue. Do you feel strongly about the Toyota recall? Please follow this link to voice your opinion or follow the discussion: "Lean and Standardization - What To Learn From Toyota"
The recall also highlights the growing interest in the field of Lean Product Development. To learn more about this emerging technology please click on: "Lean Product Development".
If you have a topic that you would like addressed, or an insight you would like to pass along, e-mail us at: Jack.Rink@rmdonovan.com
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