World-leading carmaker Toyota has suddenly halted its production lines in Japan, citing a technical glitch in its operating system. The outage has affected all 14 of Toyota’s assembly facilities in Japan, leaving a significant portion of the company’s global production idle.
The company had initially suspended operations at 12 of its 14 plants in Japan, but later in the day decided to extend the pause to include all of them. The problem has prevented Toyota from placing orders for essential auto parts, forcing a manufacturing halt.
Toyota has not released a timetable for when the plants will be back up and running or quantified expected production losses due to the hiccup. These plants are responsible for about a third of Toyota’s global car production, indicating a substantial impact.
This sudden operational freeze is a stumble for the auto giant, especially since the company was on a recovery path after facing some production challenges last year. The previous year, a cyber attack against one of Toyota’s suppliers resulted in a one-day production loss of around 13,000 vehicles. In addition, the COVID-19 restrictions in Shanghai affected Toyota’s production capabilities in Japan.
All this comes after Toyota announced changes to its production plan last May, largely due to semiconductor shortages. Toyota is known for its “just-in-time” production method, a system that minimizes costs but is vulnerable to any supply chain or system disruption.
This article is sourced from and written by AI.
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