Handling a Downturn the Toyota Way [slideshow]

Handling a Downturn the Toyota Way [slideshow]
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/08/10/1020_toyota/index.htm

 

How much of Toyota's operation is financed or supported by debt?

What does Toyota's balance sheet look like? How much cash in the bank
do they have?

What is their line of credit, and who provides it to them?

How much financial support does Toyota get from the Jap gov't?

How many tax breaks, loans, incentives have various US states given to
Toyota?

 

I noticed that one of the ways was to sit down with parts suppliers
early in the design process.

This reminds me of what some Australian govt. dept. did with the car
manufacturers a few decades ago: banged heads together and got them to
reduce the number of parts that were unique to a particular model or
manufacturer. One result was that they ended up with only two different
window-winder mechanisms, and those two were of a new design far
superior to any of their predecessors. There were said to be
significant cost savings because of the volume.

Perce

 

Toyota is *NOT* on the dole as Chrysler and GM are. Toyota is hiring
Americans and building plants here while the Detroit Duds are exporting
jobs and plants. That makes Toyota an American company while the
Detroit Duds are busy stealing our tax money and raping the American
taxpayer. I will NOT buy from the Detroit Duds, criminal conduct and
stupidity should not be rewarded.

 

From the US federal gov't, Toyota is not (that we know).

Do you disagree that Toyota has recieved millions in form of tax breaks
and incentives from various US State gov'ts?

And what do we know about any aid (or lack thereof) that the Jap gov't
is giving domestic auto makers back home?

And in Ontario, Canada

------------------
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/ASIAN+AUTOMOBILE+COMPANIES+EXPAND+OPERATIONS+IN+MEXICO-a0152030393

Asian automobile manufacturers Hyundai and Toyota are planning to invest
in new facilities in Mexico in the near future, primarily to assemble
vehicles for the export market. South Korean-based Hyundai has proposed
constructing a new facility in the port city of Veracruz to assemble
trucks and buses for export to Central and South America South America,
fourth largest continent (1991 est. pop. 299,150,000), c.6,880,000 sq mi
(17,819,000 sq km), the southern of the two continents of the Western
Hemisphere. . Toyota is considering several sites in Mexico to place a
new automobile assembly plant, with Queretaro state a possible location.
The Toyota plant would complement the Japanese company's new facility in
Tijuana, which assembles automobiles and trucks for the US market.
-------------------

 

Contrast that with the fact that at GM, if cost-cutting measures were
attempted and would eliminate any union jobs within their plant, by
union agreement, they could not be implemented. I witnessed that
first-hand when I worked for a supplier to Delphi and participated in
what GM calls a PICOS team (cost-cutting brainstorming exercise). When
a potential cost-cutting idea was initially brought up, the first gate
it had to pass thru before any further consideration or analysis was if
it would reduce headcount back at the Delphi plant. If 'yes', that idea
was immediately round filed.

 

And why, exactly, was that any business of the Australian gov't?

 

I thought one of the duties of government was to work for the benefit of
the people. If reducing the cost of cars was the end result, was that
responsibility not fulfilled?

It was the manufacturers (and the parts supplier) that made the final
decision. No coercion, the way I heard it.

Similarly, the Australian Commonwealth (federal) Govt. got the various
state traffic authorities together and persuaded them to adopt uniform
traffic laws. E.g., previously, in one of the states (no longer recall
which) a "Stop" sign meant only "stop," whereas everywhere else it meant
"stop and give way."

Would that the USA had uniform traffic laws. The number of US states
makes head-banging more difficult.

Perce

 

Um, ok.

Why not just give cars to people then? Wouldn't that be a benefit?

"banged heads together and got them to reduce the number of
parts that were unique to a particular model or manufacturer."

That sounds like coercion, like they had no choice.

Most likely accomplished by withholding federal money for road
maintainence projects. Happens in the US all the time. Most notable
use was to achieve a national 55 mph highway speed limit in the 1970's.

Is there a particular rule or regulation that you feel requires more
uniformity?

Your use of the term "head-banging" is not common in North America. I'm
not sure what you mean by it.

When used here, it usually indicates some form of frustration - as in
banging one's head against a wall.

 

When companies treat workers as a dispensable drain on resources, is it
any wonder that the workers can often be be less than fully cooperative?

Note that one of the items in the piece about Toyota's approach says
that Toyota is doing all it can to retain its workers even when they are
not building cars -- involving them in training programs and even
sending them out to work in the community, not firing them.

Moreover, not so long ago, likely in this newsgroup, an employee (or
perhaps former employee) of one of the "Big Three" said that when they
suggested changes that would improve efficiency they were often treated
like idiots.

Perce

 

That may be a chicken and egg thing. That still doesn't mean that you
codify by legal agreement to make your company less competitive by
design. It's one thing for people on either side to be jerks for
whatever reason they feel justified (which I agree that in a
non-adversarial situation should be handled by responsible people on
both sides), but to formally agree to damage your company by
prohibiting efficiency is economic suicide for both the company and the
job-holder - especially when your competitor, unionized or not, doesn't
have that millstone hanging around their neck.

 

Say what?

As the prior poster also stated (but you snipped):

"Moreover, not so long ago, likely in this newsgroup, an employee (or
perhaps former employee) of one of the "Big Three" said that when they
suggested changes that would improve efficiency they were often treated
like idiots."

 

I could have included it or I could have snipped it - it was supporting
the statement that I was directly addressing, but I left what I was
directly addressing - nothing malicious in snipping it. Even so, my
ellipsis showed that I had in fact snipped it - truth in posting. And
my saying "...It's one thing for people on either side to be jerks for
whatever reason they feel justified (which I agree that in a
non-adversarial situation should be handled by responsible people on
both sides)..." addressed what I was directly addressing *as* *well*
*as* his supporting statement that I snipped.

People not listening to employee suggestions is not unusual. Doesn't
make it right, but it's not unique to union or non-union environments.
But, again, that particular problem should be addressed by responsible
people, not used as justification for creating mechanisms that put your
company and jobs at a competitive disadvantage (and I don't know if
things like that were the justification for that particular rule, but
that seemed to be the implication).

 

Fair enough.

Sadly, it is not unusual. In thirty-plus years of business process
consulting I've seen it destroy companies either via failure to adapt or
ruination of labor-management trust.

 

It would be a costly benefit. Getting the manufacturers to see the
advantages of cooperating as far as possible wouldn't have cost very much.

The example of the window-winder (by which I mean the whole
window-raising and lowering mechanism) was, I think, only the first of
many cost-saving rationalizations.

Does a car manufacturer typically design a collection of cars as a
whole, with as many common parts and sub-assemblies as possible? E.g.,
use the same engine in the top variant of a smaller car and in the
low-end variant of a larger car?

How many different brake pads do there *need* to be? Isn't there room
for some standardization/rationalization?

Maybe my language was a little strong. Most likely what happened is that
the govt. told them something like, "The number of different parts is
unnecessary and ridiculous (especially considering the size of the
market). Supposing you all sit down together and talk to each other and
your suppliers and see if there aren't ways of reducing the number of
unique parts and saving yourselves (and the repair facilities, which
will now have to stock a smaller parts inventory) money."

Uniform speed limits, especially on the Interstates, would be a good
start. I don't know whether NY has changed its speed limits since we
left 5 years ago, but driving on I-95 in CT at the 70mph limit and then
suddenly having to slow to 55mph at the NY state line made no sense to
me. Even some states that have the same speed limit for passenger
vehicles have different limits for trucks and may also have different
criteria for determining to which vehicles those lower limits apply.

Some states, I understand, allow more trailers than others.

I meant it as in "banging heads together" above.

Perce

 

There is some of that going on. But I can tell you from an engineering
standpoint that the more tightly integrated, lighter, and compacted
things are made, the less commonality you can do for slightly different
vehicles. By that, I mean that the more you have to engineer every
ounce of weight out of and performance into a given part, the less
likely that a slightly different application can use the same part (if
other goals are to be met). You've decreased your safety margins down
as far as your manufacturing tolerancing capabilities will allow, so the
chances of *some* aspect of the part not quite working in the other
application are greatly reduced. None of what I said is an absolute,
but it is generally true that the more exacting design is forced to
become, the less able different applications are to share parts and
maintain performance and reliability goals - something will have to be
compromised.

For vehicles that squeeze every last bit of efficiency (thru weight
reduction, power management, etc.) for the "green" movement, the more
true it will be that commonization of parts for a different but similar
vehicle will be less likely.

 

That should have said "...so the chances of *some* aspect of the part
not quite working in the other application are greatly increased...".

 

there are some actual good reasons for speed differences between
vehicles. When i lived in Texas the speed limit was 65 for cars
(which translated to texan means 85) and 55 for trucks. When loaded 18
wheelers go over 55 they tear up the roads and texas does a fairly
good job of keeping their roads in good condition. And you right about
NY of course NY is a socialist state where the laws are so silly that
you can't even use the john in fear of using a toilet paper that's in
violation of a statute somewhere.

 

Short answer: Worldwide, they're in about the same shape as GM. Just
took out a huge loan. Also still living on the backs of Texas taxpayers
who financed the ill-timed factory for the biggest gas-sucking poseur
pickup on the market in San Antonio. Hard to say, we don't get to see as
much of their dark underbelly as we've seen of GM's lately.


As someone else recently said, "this could be Ford's time in the sun."

 

don't know if you they were in the office or at home when they made the
suggestions.
It's possible that all he had the nerve to do was complain to the spouse who
got tired of listening

mk5000

'This is the same thing that happened on renegade
I came in to entertain
Cause I ain't never afraid
Saying anything'--asher roth, roth boys