While supply chain issues have been troubling many automakers, we witnessed Toyota managing its production operations pretty well. There could be several reasons behind it but the foremost one is the company’s strategic shift they implemented after the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The idea was to depend less on the “just in time” parts delivery system and work toward stocking them for emergency use.
Automotive News reported in 2016, that the Japanese automaker made a database named ‘Rescue” that “stores information about thousands of parts stored at 650,000 supplier sites, helping the automaker bypass bottlenecks when one supplier gets knocked out of commission.” The mechanism worked very well for suppliers until not just one but many of them were hit by the part shortage.
It is the reason Toyota declared that they are radically shortening production numbers at its factories around the globe, curtailing September’s intended development of about 900,000 vehicles down to 540,000.
While discussing with Bloomberg Television recently, Toyota Motor North America (TMNA) executive vice-president of sales Bob Carter stated the development problems are not only related to microchips, although they share a major chunk of it. A few development modifications are made for August and September limiting the plants in North America to create
between 140,000 and 170,000 fewer vehicles in these two months. TMNA told Car and Driver:
“Due to COVID-19 and unexpected events with our supply chain, Toyota is experiencing additional shortages that will affect production at most of our North American plants. While the situation remains fluid and complex, our manufacturing and supply chain teams have worked diligently to develop countermeasures to minimize the impact on production. In North America, we are projecting a reduction of approximately 60,000 to 90,000 vehicles in August. As for September, we are projecting a reduction of 80,000 vehicles, but the situation remains very fluid. We do not anticipate any impact to employment at this time.”
Surprisingly, Toyota is not meddling with one production facility while cutting the manufacturing in North America. The San Antonio plant will continue as normal and start producing the highly awaited 2022 Tundra.
“In order to meet our production timeline and schedule for the new Tundra, we have to finish up current model production by a certain timeline,” Toyota spokeswoman Melissa Sparks told the San Antonio Express News. “If we’re delayed because of chip shortages, we can’t meet those milestones. So that’s the reason we’re prioritizing chips” for the San Antonio facility.
We have already covered several stories about the 2022 Tundra, which is entering its next generation after over a decade.
Source and Image: C&D