Change is in the air at Toyota with fresh focus

There is a new energy wave being unleashed at Toyota Motor Corporation, Japan. If everything goes according to plan, it will have enormous implications for its operations across the world where India is a critical component too.

The abbreviated slogan, TNGA, stands for Toyota New Global Architecture and is the core of this change. It is not fancy management jargon but an acknowledgement by the Japanese carmaker that conventional thought processes and business practices will just not work in a rapidly changing global environment.

New game plan “We are now at a crossroads; we must take the initiative in the building of a new business model and comprehensively review our efforts to make ever-better cars,” Toyota stated at a recent meeting with analysts, investors and global media in Japan.

This is what prompted the company to set up 2015 as a year for taking ‘steady and bold steps’ towards sustainable growth while making the most of this ‘intentional pause’ to strengthen its competitiveness.

Developing cars that deliver improvements in basic performance and product appeal is the core of TNGA. It also factors in making more attractive cars. Toyota will focus on this goalpost in a bid to ‘capture customers’ hearts and provide a driving experience that customers will never want to end’.

As part of its endeavour to significantly improve basic performance, the company will optimise every aspect of its product range. It also plans to ‘revolutionise’ the development of powertrain components (engines, transmissions and hybrid systems) and platforms while ‘thoroughly enhancing functions and performance’.

According to the presentation, Toyota’s newly developed powertrain systems have yielded nearly 25 per cent increase in overall fuel efficiency for conventional engine systems and over 15 per cent in overall power output.

As part of the TNGA drive, Toyota will coordinate development of new powertrain systems with vehicle platforms and units. As the presentation says, these developments focus on the ‘realisation of a lower centre of gravity’ as well as lighter and more compact components. Eventually, the goal is to achieve unified design through modularisation, the basic principles by which all cars are built.

Toyota believes that application of TNGA and lowering the centre of gravity will go a long way in improving drive and product appeal. In a compact car, for instance, this will reduce side-to-side rolling and assure more stability and comfort as well as better manoeuverability. Going forward, the company aims to design a new model that offers the lowest centre of gravity and highest manoeuvering performance in its class.

The other interesting part of TNGA pertains to new platforms which feature ‘innovative improvements’ to vehicle underbodies and suspensions. All these initiatives have ‘dramatically increased’ product appeal by enabling more responsive handling, higher quality drive and superior collision performance.

Toyota believes all will translate into ‘greater safety and peace of mind’. Depending on the segment, its present plans for the new body structure are for an overall increase in rigidity of between 30 and 65 per cent.

Architectural changes Once it has attained the objective of performance and appeal, Toyota plans to take a strategic approach towards standardisation. “We will do so with a view to total optimisation based on sharing of parts and smart manufacturing of better cars,” it stated at the meeting.

This will involve a dual approach where, for the interiors and exteriors, it is engaging in differentiated development for each model. It will go hand-in-hand with customer preferences while standardising platforms and components. In the process, this will support the chief engineers responsible for vehicle development.

While putting in place architecture that improves basic performance, it is also important to determine the optimal driving position from the perspective of the person behind the wheel. Keeping this in mind, Toyota has factored in six criteria (driving position, seat position, physical burden, visibility, entry/exit and movement sensitivity). These, in turn, have helped categorise hip height into five groupings based on hip points.

Based on this architecture, the parts surrounding the driver comprising seat frames, seat pads, shift levers and parking pedals are strategically shared across platforms and models. By pushing forward TNGA and smarter car manufacturing Toyota plans to reduce its use of development resources by at least 20 per cent.

Streamlining production What was the trigger for this new thinking within the top leadership? It began with the Lehman crisis in 2008 when automakers were staring at huge unused capacities as sales crashed worldwide. Toyota was quick to react by clamping down on surplus capacity and production subsequently returned to normal in 2012.

As a result, the company has been putting off construction of new plants for three years beginning 2013. It has used this break to introspect on steps needed to improve capabilities. One of these has involved optimising existing capacity and linking production of same-model vehicles across multiple plants.

Toyota has consequently reduced capital expenditure on plant construction and new model changeover by a staggering 40 per cent compared with 2008. “Moreover, our (capital) expenditures are expected to decrease even further owing mainly to the positive flow-on effects of TNGA at the time of the next model changeover”.

While focusing on one-by-one production (where production is carried out according to each customer order ), the company is going in for simple and slim production lines.

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