The shock of the current spate of recalls derives from the fact that Toyota's management team was once widely considered the pioneering force behind TQM: "The Japanese combined their greater cost-effectiveness with a sustained drive for the largest possible market penetration, founded on high levels of investment, innovation, and downright ingenuity. The conventional Western approach to long-term strategic planning, with its three to five-year cycles, mostly failed to match this Eastern thrust" (Heller 2005). Toyota was famous for its Kaizen philosophy of eliminating waste and tolerating no defects, an ideal accomplished by continually auditing its products and processes. Although it is not clear what caused Toyota's problems, some analysts have attributed the company's faltering to its passion for waste elimination. This resulted in Toyota's product line encompassing relatively few designs, and a focus on building relationships with relatively few suppliers to keep inventories low. Although interchangeability and intercompatibility of components is efficient, when there are problems, a total systems failure results, if quality control is not sufficiently enforced.

Despite the fact that the TQ pioneer Toyota has been knocked from its pedestal, this is not...

Rather it is best to study what worked from the Toyota miracle during its heyday. Maximizing efficiency is an ideal that stretches back to Henry Ford's concept of assembly line manufacturing and interchangeable parts. Toyota's skillful leveraging of multiple types of markets (from SUVs to small family vehicles) internationally and its high-quality customer service are why Toyota customers are still so stubbornly loyal to the brand. All American companies can learn from Toyota's principles of success, as well as the company's recent mistakes.
References

Heller, Robert. (2005). Japanese managers. Thinking Managers. Retrieved March 20, 2010 at http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/management/japanese-management.php

Reh, F. John. (2010). Pareto Principle: The 80-20 Rule. About.com. Retrieved March 10, 2010

at http://management.about.com/cs/generalmanagement/a/Pareto081202.htm

Setting priorities for action. (2010). Pareto toolkit. About.com. Retrieved March 20, 2010 at http://management.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=management&cdn=money&tm=190&f=00&su=p560.7.336.ip_&tt=2&bt=0&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.hci.com.au/hcisite2/toolkit/paretos.htm