Toyota Motor Corp., working to regain customers’ trust after vehicle recalls, said its quality advisory panel will share initial recommendations next week as the company evaluates its North American suppliers.
“We’re going to discuss what we’ve been doing, and they’re going to tell us what they’ve seen and give us their initial thoughts, things we should consider,” Steve St. Angelo, chief quality officer and executive vice president for North America, said in an interview at an automotive conference in Acme, Michigan.
Panel members have expressed some concern with how Toyota ensures that its quality and safety standards are upheld as it expands its base of suppliers in North America, St. Angelo said.
The world’s largest automaker is trying to improve its vehicles following recalls of more than 8 million cars and light trucks worldwide for defects linked to unintended acceleration. In the U.S., those recalls prompted congressional hearings and a record $16.4 million fine.
Toyota has repaired more than 80 percent of U.S. vehicles recalled for acceleration-related flaws and other problems, St. Angelo said today.
The outside quality panel, led by former Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater, has visited Toyota facilities in Japan and the U.S., its technical center in Michigan and dealerships, he said. The group has watched crash tests, driven recalled cars and observed chief engineers interacting with suppliers.
Midway Through Testing
Toyota is midway through testing its manufacturing process and its vehicles’ components, something typically done when a model is introduced and then only periodically thereafter.
The panel is now going to suppliers of parts that control the vehicles’ movement, fuel and steering, and putting them through that same initial product-introduction checklist.
“We need to go back and re-ensure that they understood what the requirements are,” he said. “There were shortcomings in that verification process. We’re going back and revalidating everything.”
The panel hasn’t found any “showstoppers,” though some suppliers’ equipment needs to be maintained better, St. Angelo said.
So far the company, suppliers and dealers have been working hard to regain customer confidence, said St. Angelo, who also is president of the Toyota City, Japan-based company’s plants in Georgetown, Kentucky.
“We won’t stop until we do,” he said.
