By Robert F. Brands with Jeff Zbar
Once upon a time, to start your Toyota Camry, you placed a key in the ignition and turned until the electrical connection was made and the engine started.
To accelerate, you pressed the gas pedal, which pulled a cable attached to a mechanical throttle. Assuming the shift had been manually placed into gear -- the car moved.
Today, electronics and computers have replaced many of the mechanical parts that once made cars move. To start many cars or place them in gear, buttons are pushed. To accelerate, the gas pedal is connected not to a cable, but to a computer -- via electronic circuitry.
In light of Toyota's massive recall of 10 million Camry, Tercel, Prius hybrid and luxury Lexus models (and that's a shortened list), one has to wonder: At what point does innovation encourage failure?
In other words, has Toyota gone too far? In the interest of fairness, these issues potentially affect any modern automobile. Already, GM is facing recalls related to steering.
The costs -- in terms of finances and consumer confidence -- can be great. As Toyota mechanics are correcting millions of cars and consumer confidence lags, rival automakers have reported double-digit sales growth.
But the question of innovation for innovation's sake -- or for the sake of "technological evolution" -- begs to be asked. Sure, innovation of the vehicle and the way it's manufactured cuts costs, including labor and benefits. We continually innovate to cost reduce. But now, cars don't just turn on with the turn of a key. And when they don't roar to life as expected, the corner mechanic must be trained not only in auto repair, but in computers technology (assuming he or she owns the equipment).
This reminds me of a story. It was the 1970s. Two adventurers once were traveling by pick-up truck in northern Mexico when their vehicle broke down. The local mechanic took a look under the hood, grabbed a coffee can of old parts, and fashioned a fix.
How does this all relate to the innovation imperatives? In Robert's Rules of Innovation, it mentions two key imperatives that seem to have gone awry here. First, Toyota sought the imperative of value creation in pursuit of innovation. Yet any value created through their innovation-gone-awry is more than lost through the recall and labor costs and lost sales and good will.
Second, who has been held accountable? After first declining to do so, Toyota President Akio Toyoda made a very public appearance on Capitol Hill. He apologized and promised to "do everything in my power" to ensure the malfunctions and tragedies don't happen again. Do Americans buy it? Can Toyota afford to wait and wonder?
To that end, the complexity of the conundrum facing Toyota at one point was belied by the simplicity of their first apparent fix. After spending days in conference over how to remedy the stuck throttle, high-paid engineers came up with a simple solution: Shorten the gas pedal.
To be sure, in the end, the issues facing the automaker were far more complex than nipping an inch off a too-long pedal. But could the issues have been remedied in the designer's or accountant's office years ago -- when the company believed innovation would save money?
We -- and Toyota -- may never know. But we've learned that innovation poorly planned can have the greatest expectations, but the worst outcomes.
© 2010 Robert F. Brands with Jeff Zbar. Robert F. Brands is the author of Robert's Rules of Innovation: A 10-Step Program for Corporate Survival
Frankly, this reads more like some Luddite screed, mixed well with some personal resentment of the ability to invent and improve upon the inventions of others, than anything else. And since when has there ever been innovation acted upon that didn't have a need, or improve upon an extant situation?
I guess the question I have is how much MTBF testing did Toyota do on these systems before they went into mass production. I'm not sure if this is a supplier-related issue either, because I would assume that Toyota designed these sub-systems and held their supplier(s) to Toyota specification.
The drive by wire throttle systems are much more fuel efficient, reduce emissions, and in many cases are cheaper to fix than older systems.
As we're seeing more and more with Toyota, the back-end costs are considerable.
There's only one problem with this and it's a duzzy. When you outsource the manufacture of anything, you lose control over your product and your suppliers will cut all the corners they can get away with. In Toyota's case it sounds like they're the victims of terrible programming. something on the same level that Microsoft produces.
Technology isn't being introduced for the benefit of its customers! It isn't being used for its own sake either, they use it to reduce their cost of production. Besides that, it makes the manufacturer seem to be ahead of everyone else and becomes a selling point.
I'll admit to being old fashioned, I believe in the KISS principle (keep it simple stupid).
In my opinion there was an engineering failure here as well. Every car I have ever owned had enough braking power to kill the engine. Apparently this is not the case with the new Toyota's (and probably others)
That particular oversight is unforgivable. Brakes are not something to be over looked in overall design.
They blamed CTS for defects in pedal assemblies manufactured by Toyota before CTS became their supplier.
CTS was also able to demonstrate that the pedal assemblies supplied to Toyota were manufactured using Toyota design specifications and met Toyota quality standards.
If the problem IS in the CTS assembly, it's in there because Toyota put it there.
Accusing of "innovation for innovation's sake" is either a Luddite misunderstanding or intentional misrepresentation of why such technology is used.
Next he will apply this to airplanes, central heating systems, motor management system, photocopiers, the list is really infinite etc..
Fly/control/drive by wire/computer greatly increases functionality, reliability while reducing cost, weight.
It was driver error. Very difficult, however, to tell someone who's child was killed that it was their fault, so a huge PR mess ensued. I fear Toyota is going through the same thing.
David v. Goliath always ends up with David getting squashed, no matter what the fairy tales say.