Toyota (Toyota Motor Corp), the world's largest traditional carmaker, said on Tuesday that it was happy to use scratched or defective parts from suppliers. The carmaker is trying to cut costs amid global chip shortages and rising material costs.
As we all know, Japanese manufacturing has always put the pursuit of "perfection" above "speed", and Toyota is also a car company famous for its strict quality control. But now Toyota is willing to accept parts that have "minor flaws" but are still "good enough to use". In the past, these parts could not be found in Toyota's eyes.
The rare move marks a major shift: Toyota's requirements for parts are being downgraded from "perfect" to "good enough" in the face of an intractable supply chain crisis.
"We are very careful about the outside of the car. Those parts are easy for you to see. But there are a lot of things that people won't notice unless people really look at them very carefully, "Takefumi Shiga, Toyota's chief research and development program, said at a news conference."
Shiga and other Toyota engineers are meeting with component suppliers to discuss the feasibility of accepting scratched or defective parts, requiring that the safety and performance of the car are not affected and that the defects are unlikely to be noticed by buyers.
He added that the number of rejected plastic seat belt parts had been reduced by 3/4 after visiting a company.
Driven by favorable exchange rates, Toyota last month raised its operating profit forecast for the fiscal year ending March 31 by 12%. However, the company warned that semiconductor shortages were dampening production and increasing material costs, hurting its potential profitability.
