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Toyota's standard work has, more than any one thing driven them to incredible growth and success over the last few decades. That doesn't mean it's perfect, especially when growing and building facilities all over the world. The benefits of standard work are still greatly misunderstood and therefore underestimated by corporate America. To think that this recall offers evidence that Toyota's production methods are less valid, especially in the face of their great long term success, is to prove that one doesn't understand them.

Standardization is not the problem here. Toyota needs to ask themselves what went wrong and not "who's at fault". When things like this happen, it is usually a breakdown in the system. Without standardization, you create an environment with huge raw material inventories and massive management systems trying to manage everything.

I agree that blaming standardization is the wrong reaction to the problem. But I'm more interested in the way the Toyota company responded - by publicly appologizing and taking full responsibility. In these days of lawyers and lawsuits I find it refreshing that they didn't try to distance themselves as many other companies might have done.

Toyota developed system that have proved their effectivity time and again. However, due to unprcedented growth in automobile market globally and in pursuit to gain # 1 position in the world, beating GM, Toyota management lost sight of few things and more importantly it overlooked systems developed by itself. Knowing Toyota for 18 years, I am confident, it will come out of crisis soon. Toyota management will have to refocus their priorities.

Toyota developed system that have proved their effectivity time and again. However, due to unprcedented growth in automobile market globally and in pursuit to gain # 1 position in the world, beating GM, Toyota management lost sight of few things and more importantly it overlooked systems developed by itself. Knowing Toyota for 18 years, I am confident, it will come out of crisis soon. Toyota management will have to refocus their priorities.

Standardization did not cause the fault, of course. However, standardization did contribute to the scale of the problem and recall. When you have a quality problem with a sole source supplier or a standardized component, you will naturally have a widespread problem.

Rather than deny that standardization leads to bigger recalls, I would think you want to agree. The answer to the accusation is, "So?" 
 
The reason any manufacturer can have so many models, the reason the level of quality for so many subsystems has increased, the reason the cost/value ratio of today's new automobiles keeps increasing is because manufacturers across the globe in all sorts of industries - power, gas, oil, aircraft, weapons, tractors, etc. are all adopting these same methods. Yes, these methods can lead to having a problem show up in more places - DUH!  
 
Would we rather pay $5,000 roundtrip to NY, or $50,000 for a Saturn auto? This argument is designed for one purpose only - to sell newspapers and spawn controversy that eventually sells more newspapers. To pose the argument you have to be willing to been seen by those who understand it as the most ill-informed position imaginable.

The only knock on "standardization" that I can see is if you let the supplier quality get out of control, e.g., what Boeing did on the Dreamliner. In that case, poor supplier quality can affect many products/product lines. Effective supplier control can be difficult to do, so if you go this route of using the same parts in multiple designs - which is what Ford is doing now - you have to really stay on top of that supplier quality through extensive partner programs around design for quality and design for manufacturing - far beyond simple quality at time of receiving inspection.