Experts call on Toyota to decentralise

operations in order to better respond to safety and quality concerns.
“Toyota has erred too much on the side of global centralisation and needs to shift the balance somewhat toward greater local authority and control,” the Toyota North American Quality Advisory Panel said in its report on Monday. Toyota’s tightly controlled global structure hindered information sharing and contributed to miscommunication and delayed response time to quality and safety issues, fuelling criticism that Toyota was being unresponsive to regulators and customers,” it said.
Toyota’s once stellar reputation for safety has taken a battering in recent years, with the firm recalling more than 12 million vehicles since 2009 and paying US authorities nearly US$50 million in penalties.
The commission said the company should consider changing its regional “silo” structure in North America, whereby several division heads each report directly to the parent company in Japan.
Toyota should “consider appointing one chief executive for North American operations with responsibility for all regional functional organisations”, the report said.
It also said Toyota “needs to ensure that it listens and responds as positively to negative external feedback as it does to negative internal feedback” and continue to “enhance its safety practices and procedures”.
The panel, appointed to help chart the company’s recovery, is chaired by Rodney Slater, a former US transportation secretary, and includes engineers, management experts and former officials. – AFP.