UM: Auto Industry

By

The Detroit Free Press reports on Toyota’s unexpected first-quarter profit of $2.2 billion. A year earlier, the company lost $850 million, likely due to the wave of recalls late last year. Toyota attributes the turnaround to cutting costs. Jeffrey Liker, a UM industrial engineering professor and author of “The Toyota Way,” told the Free Press: “They formed an emergency profit committee in the midst of the recession. They committed to reducing their break-even so that they could be profitable even at 70% of capacity.” [Source]