丰田幼主吹响汽车霸主回归冲锋号

    丰田公司在危难时机的指导原则之一是genchi genbutsu，即“亲自到现场查看”。我追踪丰田公司已有20余年。因此，为了亲自了解这些变革对于丰田的意义所在，我赴加利福尼亚和纽约采访了数位丰田公司高管，随后又飞赴日本。

    丰田经历的所有困境中，没有什么比2009-2010年的召回危机更严重的了。当时有报告称，由于汽车失去控制、刹车失灵而引发骇人听闻的事故，其中有些事故甚至造成了人员伤亡的惨剧。最终公司召回了800多万辆丰田车和雷克萨斯，相当于公司一年的产量。独立调查结果最终显示，丰田汽车并不存在机械或者电力方面的缺陷，只有一些地垫放置错误、加速器踏板粘滞以及驾驶员操作失当方面的原因，但调查结果也暴露了公司文化上的重大缺陷。丰田公司的管理依然沿袭了上世纪五十年代的模式。日本总部严格掌控着公司的每一个决策；美国市场就如同附属国一般毫无自主权。如果美国的经理人发现汽车存在缺陷，他们不得不沿着一条复杂的官僚主义路径来向日本总部反映问题，但在总部，他们常常遭遇到的是怀疑和提防。丰田一直担心患上“大企业病”，但最终它还是没能逃脱这样的命运。

    消费者对丰田汽车的信心大降，公司上层也深受震动。负责丰田汽车北美市场销售和管理的稻叶良睍告诉我：“我们意识到，公司并非如我们所想的那样，远远超越我们的竞争者。过去我们有些太自以为是。”丰田开始建立更迅速的反应机制。当时，雷克萨斯多功能车中发现了一处缺陷，丰田在短短八天之内就组织召回。但丰田对于向美国市场授予更多管理权限仍比较犹豫。丰田没有指派一人全权负责北美市场的运作，而是依然保持了传统的汇报制度。公司在加利福尼亚南部的大规模销售业务以及在肯塔基州的大型制造总部仍然要向日本总部的相应高管汇报。

    正当新的管理层试图走出召回危机的阴影之时，丰田在3月份又经受了一次艰难考验。当时，日本发生的强烈地震和大规模海啸使得公司生产陷入混乱。这场灾难破坏了日本北部的工厂，500多个零部件的供应受到严重影响，而丰田公司又无法找到替代产品。位于丰田市（Toyota City）附近的一级准时制供应商并未受到直接影响，但位于北部的二级和三级供应商情况如何，公司并不清楚。

    丰田章男召集了位于日本的车身工程和动力系统等部门总经理，指示他们立即恢复生产，无需浪费时间向上汇报。这一举动非同寻常。供应商恢复生产之前，公司派出了一支由两名工程师组成的团队奔赴各个供应商工厂，以确定所需备用部件的类型和产地。根据莱克的统计，到4月份，供应缺失的零部件数量下降到了150个；5月份，全部500个零部件中只剩下30个供应不足。 丰田只用了计划时间的一半，就解决了问题。但是莱克指出，公司损失的产量任然高达800,000，相当于年产量的10%。公司本来计划通过加班加点来弥补大部分差额，但泰国10月份的洪灾影响了约100家供应商的生产，推迟了这一目标的实现。因此，公司在北美的存货要到3月份之后才能补足。

    One of Toyota's guiding principles in times of crisis is genchi genbutsu, or "go and see." So to find out for myself what the changes meant for a company I had been covering for more than 20 years, I interviewed Toyota executives in California and New York, and then flew to Japan.

    Of all the woes Toyota has suffered, none has stung like the recall crisis of 2009-10. Ignited by reports of horrific accidents, some fatal, caused by cars that ran out of control and couldn't be braked to a stop, it eventually involved the recall more than 8 million Toyotas and Lexuses -- equivalent to a year's production. Independent investigations turned up no mechanical or electronic defects -- only some misplaced floor mats and sticky accelerator pedals to go along with driver error -- but exposed major flaws in the corporate culture. Toyota, it turned out, was still being managed the way it had been in the 1950s: Every decision was tightly controlled in Japan; the U.S. was treated like a vassal state. When American managers found defects in vehicles, they had to follow a tortuous bureaucratic process to register their complaints in Japan, where they were often met with skepticism and defensiveness. As it had long feared, Toyota had succumbed to "big-company disease."

    Consumer confidence in its cars plummeted, and Toyota's higher-ups were shaken. "We learned we are not so ahead of competitors as we might have thought," Yoshimi Inaba, who heads sales and administration in the U.S., told me. "We were a little complacent." Toyota began to develop quicker reflexes. When a defect was identified in a Lexus SUV, Toyota organized a recall in just eight days. But it balked at delegating more executive authority to America. Rather than designate one person to head all of its North American operations, it maintained its traditional silo structure. Its giant sales operation in Southern California, and its equally large manufacturing complex headquartered in Kentucky, continued reporting to different executives in Japan.

    Just as it was trying to put the recall crisis behind it, the new management was tested again in March, when an earthquake and massive tidal wave disrupted production. The tsunami damaged plants in the north of Japan, disrupting the supply of over 500 parts, and Toyota couldn't find replacements. Its first-tier, just-in-time suppliers near Toyota City were not directly affected, but up north were second- and third-tier suppliers that Toyota did not know much about.

    Akio assembled general managers of departments such as body engineering and powertrain in Japan, and took the unusual step of instructing them to restore production and not waste time reporting upward. They sent two-man teams of engineers to visit each supplier plant and to identify and locate backup parts until the suppliers were running again. By April, unavailable parts were down to 150, and by May, according to Liker's count, all but 30 of the 500 parts were available. Toyota solved the problems in half the time expected, but Liker figures the company still lost 800,000 production units -- 10% of its annual output. Plans to make up most of the shortfall through overtime work were pushed back by October floods in Thailand that affected about 100 suppliers. As a result, inventories in North America won't be completely replenished until March.