Hope for Toyota after all??

[oldeskewltoy]

We need to become more solid and get back to basics, to sharpen our manual skills and further develop them. When I was a novice, experienced masters used to be called gods, and they could make anything.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/gods-comeback-toyota-humans-steal-074946658.html

[ogdougynutty]

One thing that comes to mind from reading that article. Is that maybe they want to switch back to the old ways to get people to come to them for work. From my point of view, who wants to feed machines all day and just check if everything is in spec.

And it goes back to the origin of the reasons behind the assembly line. If someone does a single task plenty of times, they will develop better ways to get that task done. Nice little article.

[idreamofdrifting]

+1
excellent read!
It's all about going back to the basics, and that's quite alright with me IMO

[yoshimitsuspeed]

I always hate reading stuff like this because it makes me want to respect Toyota on their back end. When it comes to production efficiency, company organization, employee strategy and similar things they have been groundbreaking for decades.

Then I remember that when it comes to the interaction with their customers it is all 100% about making money. They don't give two $#!!$ about us or our old cars. They will make our lives a living hell because of company policy or 25 year old contracts that no longer make them money or benefit them in any way. They hope our cars wear out and become too hard to find parts for so we are forced to go buy a brand new FRS off the lot.
If it doesn't have to do with you actively handing them money you are invisible to them.
So yeah, I think it's pretty cool what they are doing in that article but I still can't bring myself to respect or appreciate Toyota any more.

[SidekickChuck]

Thats just business practice when it comes to high volume product to the masses.

Microsoft is discontinuing support for Windows XP this month, Apps are no longer made for the iPhone 1, etc...
I think most car manufacturers follow this model as well. They can not produce parts for their old line up without loosing money in the long run.

It would just be nice if they could license out part re-manufacturing to companies that may be in the business of making quality reproduction parts. Classic cars have it, and it would be great to have a company that did it for older imports.

[idreamofdrifting]

Thats just business practice when it comes to high volume product to the masses.

Microsoft is discontinuing support for Windows XP this month, Apps are no longer made for the iPhone 1, etc...
I think most car manufacturers follow this model as well. They can not produce parts for their old line up without loosing money in the long run.

It would just be nice if they could license out part re-manufacturing to companies that may be in the business of making quality reproduction parts. Classic cars have it, and it would be great to have a company that did it for older imports.

+1

[yoshimitsuspeed]

Thats just business practice when it comes to high volume product to the masses.

Microsoft is discontinuing support for Windows XP this month, Apps are no longer made for the iPhone 1, etc...
I think most car manufacturers follow this model as well. They can not produce parts for their old line up without loosing money in the long run.

It would just be nice if they could license out part re-manufacturing to companies that may be in the business of making quality reproduction parts. Classic cars have it, and it would be great to have a company that did it for older imports.

Don't even get me started on Microsoft and apple.
Die hard Linux user here.

That is exactly my issue. I don't expect Toyota to make parts that will loose them money or take the focus off their forward progress. They just shouldn't go out of their way to hold us back from making forward progress.

One of my big pet projects was the Ogura SC internal bearings. Ogura uses a unique bearing that is only available through the OEM division of bearing suppliers. Ogura doesn't sell bearings because they consider their SCs non serviceable. Which is BS in it's own right but they still offer replacements. Since the SC12/14 housings are different there is no bolt on replacement.
After months of harassing and discussion Ogura was about ready to get me access to bearings when they realized there were contracts with Toyota that legally prevented this from being possible.
I probably spent another 4 months and hundred hours trying to convince Toyota that these contracts no longer benefited them in any way and that they should a. get and sell me bearings, b. allow Ogura to sell me bearings, or c. Allow NSK to directly sell me bearings. Unfortunately this just isn't possible. Or the way I see it we just aren't worth the effort of making an effort. I probably have over $500 hours into trying to find a cheap easy solution to be able to rebuild the stock SC and have nothing to show for it solely because of Toyota.
This is a personal experience of mine but I have heard of many others where Toyota has cock blocked their customers and aftermarket suppliers for reasons that didn't benefit them in any way.