Key Challenges for Toyota

One downside of having a common platform arises when safety standards change and all your models are now non-compliant. Or you have a single source supplier and their factory can't deliver. It helps to have some variability in design and source. Even multiple factories. You can have too many of all of those too. Rightsizing is both an art and a science.

 

Neither are problems with the platform strategy.

If safety standards change - front offset for example, there are fewer designs to change. The same is true for bad parts.

Platform does not mean a single supplier, although much of the historic TMS does favor single close suppliers that makes managing suppliers easier. It does say if you have multiple suppliers for the same part, say a pedal, that they all use the same design. If you have a right handed and left handed part, these are best handled by mirror images.

 

It has been said that individual parts can be instantaneously changed...can this new system cope with this?...