Toyota Supplier Relations: Fixing the Suprima Chassis

In late 2004, Walt Bernstein, the director of production control for Toyota Motor Manufacturing’s Macon, Georgia operation, was notably frustrated with the plant manager for ChassisCo, a Toyota supplier. There were quality and conformance issues with the rear suspension cradle that ChassisCo was manufacturing for Toyota’s new Suprima crossover. ChassisCo had made a number of operational improvements since production started 14 months earlier, but problems continued to surface. Bernstein, an expert in Toyota’s production principles, needed to figure out what to do.