Toyota is taking product development authority away from Japanese bosses and putting it in the hands of North American executives as part of a larger change aimed at fixing quality control issues that hurt the automakers reputation last year.
Until now, vehicles produced and designed and developed in North America had to be approved by chief engineers in Japan. Vehicles unique to the North American market such as the Venza, Sienna, Avalon, Tacoma and Tundra will no longer require painstaking and frustrating sign-offs from Japan at each step of the development processes.
We are going to implement the process from design to preparation for production to development, cost planning, and identifying and selecting suppliers, said Inaba, CEO of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. All these processes are going to be 100 percent done here, without going back to Japan for approval.
The changes come too late to affect the development of the redesigned 2012 Toyota Camry due this fall, however upcoming models based in North America, such as the next Tundra pickup, will see the result of the new structure.
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Toyota Hands Over Development Clout to U.S. Operations on AutoGuide.com
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