Toyota Case Study Example. The CassisCo Crisis: Causes and Solutions

One of the main causes of the crisis at ChassisCo’s Athens plant was negligence on both parts of the issue. Toyota failed to fully inspect what ChassisCo had to work with when making the new parts for Toyota. But also, senior management at ChassisCo failed to listen to what their engineers were saying about being understaffed and undersupplied. All too often, negligence, in part, is the reason for failure and cause of major crises around the world. 

Toyota had a responsibility to thoroughly inspect the factories and assembly centers that they would be outsourcing to. Their own methodology is “go to the source and see things yourself,” (Fine). Toyota still foolishly decided to do business with ChassisCo solely relying on the production numbers that they previously put up. Without adhering to their own motto, Toyota made a mistake outsourcing more work to ChassisCo. In the years before Toyota made this decision, ChassisCo ran into some internal issues that caused a few splits in the company. If Toyota wasn’t negligent they would have seen these issues and not gone into business with ChassisCo.

On the other hand, ChassisCo management refused to send help to their overworked employees and caused them to burnout. They also wouldn’t send the supplies needed to expedite the processes of putting the chassis together. “We needed to qualify 102 sets of tools for the new rear suspension cradle and I only had two tool and die engineers to do it,” says an employee at ChassisCo Athens (Fine). In order for ChassisCo to fix this problem they must start listening to their employees more and sending supplies when needed. It’s no easy task to just hire on more employees, but if that’s what’s needed then that’s what should be done. It happens too often in these cases of negligence, you end up with burnt out, injured employees, or worse, no employees at all. 

Toyota seemed to have no idea of the impact their choices made. Routinely changing the engineers that ChassisCo has established relationships with, and they even refused to listen to those on their side of the story. Such as Lucy Martinez who said, “ChassisCo did not have the project management skills they needed,” (Fine). This falls on the responsibility of Toyota to hear their employees out and listen to their concerns. If the senior leads at Toyota listened, and inspected ChassisCo thoroughly, they could have avoided this problem. To solve this, Toyota will have to implement some way to hold senior management accountable for not taking action. They must have heard and understood the complaints, but they need to provide solutions.

Personally, if I were ChassisCo, I wouldn’t want Toyota to bring us the extra labor when we weren’t ready. Yes, it would make us a lot of money. But if we’re not prepared for it, then its going to look bad and blow up in our face. On the other side, as Toyota, I would have to dedicate time to insure that those who we we are doing business with are ready for it. That would require thoroughly investigating these companies that we chose to partner with on certain projects. Most Importantly, for both companies, I would have listened to my employees. They are the ones on the front line who know best what is going on there. They have the most knowledge ad insight as to what needs to be done, and I should trust them when they are waving red flags. ChassisCo wouldn’t send more help when needed, and Toyots decided to do business with someone who was known (by Toyota employees) to not carry their own weight. Both companies had many cases of negligence that caused a huge disaster for both parties.

Works Cited

Fine, Charles H., et al. "Toyota Supplier Relations: Fixing the Suprima Chassis." MIT Management, 24 Apr. 2017, cdn.inst-fs-iad-prod.inscloudgate.net/d04fdc85-3597-450d-9c77-3afe090a667e/Case%20Study_Toyota%20Supplier%20Relations_Fixing%20the%20Suprima%20Chassis.pdf?token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzUxMiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCIsImtpZCI6ImNkbiJ9.eyJyZXNvdXJjZSI6Ii9kMDRmZGM4NS0zNTk3LTQ1MGQtOWM3Ny0zYWZlMDkwYTY2N2UvQ2FzZSUyMFN0dWR5X1RveW90YSUyMFN1cHBsaWVyJTIwUmVsYXRpb25zX0ZpeGluZyUyMHRoZSUyMFN1cHJpbWElMjBDaGFzc2lzLnBkZiIsInRlbmFudCI6ImNhbnZhcyIsInVzZXJfaWQiOm51bGwsImlhdCI6MTY0NTk0NjcwMywiZXhwIjoxNjQ2MDMzMTAzfQ.PNve1bJm5HY2v_tXUEi7uu0SSCMu9C2wQtK_GBUodkpgoxeW3y_8ewjbMU6pmEfLwykpQw37W3zLk-eZua9x2w&download=1&content_type=application%2Fpdf.