Toyota Recalls Again

Stop the presses, bring out the voices of disbelieving people Toyota has issued another recall on a previous recall. Is my sarcastic tone coming through? So what? If you want to read about it, look here. People are obviously questioning whether this is evidence that Toyota is still on the way down after their highs. I would rather say that it is evidence of Toyota’s honesty than anything else. I cannot really see an American or German car company admitting it made a mistake twice, can you? 

This brings up the usual, “what happened to Toyota?” discussion. It is very clear people, it really is. They lost focus. They focussed on becoming big rather than continually improving. This loss of focus was only temporary though. If you want a great view on it I recommend reading this brief article. I think it sums up the whole situation of what happened at Toyota well. I do not think Toyota is the sort of company that will make the same mistake twice. Is yours?

Cheers!

Standards vs Desired State

As anyone worth their mustard in continuous improvement will tell you, you need to start with defining a standard in order that you can clearly identify when you have deviated from that standard.

I read an interesting article a few months ago, which unfortunately I cannot find the link to, where the writer observed that in Toyota (because we all have to reference Toyota at some point, it’s the law) they have gone a step further. The “standard” in Toyota is actually the “desired state”. Interesting thought isn’t it…. Lets consider what this means, it means that our organisation constantly exists in a state of deviation. Obviously some deviations being more severe than others. However, it also means that every time we try to address a deviation we are not merely trying to restore to standard (although we are, if you get me) we are trying to achieve our desired state. Note that means for every deviation. Pretty cool huh? If we don’t get there, no problem, put it back into the improvement list and wait till it becomes a priority again.

I don’t know but I am guess that in order for such a “constant state of deviation” improvement system to work you would need to have a good control or feel for the priorities of the areas to work with. I would also assume that this would relate to the size of the deviation from the desired state standard. 

I would be interested in your thoughts and also I will look for the article so I can link it here!