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this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2023
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No Stupid Questions
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I'd like to expand a little bit on the reason for quality on the Japanese side: At the end of the war, Japan was very low on resources and could not maintain large manufacturing lines with great inventory as typical of the mass production process innovated by Ford at the time, which forces them to maximize efficiency and minimize waste, both in terms of material as well as time. The Toyota Production System, or Lean as now it is known, was codified based on some core principles such as "minimize waste through continuous process improvement" and "automation with a human touch", which allowed them to have great advantages in both efficiency and quality over the American manufacturers at the time.
I do disagree with your statement that Toyota quality was because of they "over-engineer" their product, but rather, something that is near opposite is true: Toyota is known to be very conservative with innovation and very much prefers to use tried and true reliable parts than make radical changes, that and the fact that they are the gold standard for manufacturing efficiency means that their defect rate will be very low. So, I don't think their products are shaped by their culture, but rather their culture is shaped by their products.
Thanks for the insight! I've learned a little more about Toyota's process specifically in this thread, which is cool.
I would argue that "over engineer" in my original context is more in the sense that aircraft are "over engineered" to be reliable beyond normal operating parameters. American cars at the time were generally built with like 100k miles in mind before needing a rebuild. Then Toyota comes rolling in with engines that can do 3-4 times that no prob. So Toyotas are "over engineered" in the sense that "these engines go above and beyond what other manufacturers consider acceptable."
But I agree that there's maybe some better terminology to be used because when I think of "over engineered" in context of cars, I am mostly thinking of things like, "Okay, I get that maybe you eek out a teeny bit more efficiency, but putting the water pump under the manifold where it can leak into the block seems like a really bad idea." I've updated my comment to reflect that, open to suggestions haha.
I would really recommend reading Riker's "The Toyota Way", it's short but excellent read, although a bit self-congratulatory at times about the success of NUMMI.
When I think about the word "Over-engineered", it usually refers to something like Juicero that adds unnecessary complexity to a problem solving approach, and good reliable engineering is the exact opposite of that. A minor example of that applied to a car engine is the turbocharger, it greatly enhances the efficiency of the fuel intake by forced convection, however the added complexity made it less reliable.
And the other thing to note that is that aerospace products are less reliable by necessity as their Factor of Safety never really go past 1.2 due to weight requirements, whereas you typically want the Factor of Safety of a normal design to be in the 2-3 range.
If I recall correctly, Toyota’s Lean strategy was quite influential in operations management and continues to influence today. Six Sigma and Agile Scrum both have a lot of credit to give to Lean.