Lexus wins yet another award for dependability
J.D. Power honour for 2019 marks eighth straight year for manufacturer
Lexus shows dependability in its dependability. With its top spot in J.D. Power’s 2019 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study, it has claimed supremacy in these rankings for eight years in a row.
In the 2019 study, owners of three-year-old Lexus cars and SUVs reported experiencing 106 problems per 100 vehicles over the previous 12 months.
In these 2016-model-year units, that scores 30 points higher than the industry average. The Lexus ES is ranked as the most reliable compact premium car, and the Lexus GX is tops in the mid-size premium SUV category.
Meanwhile, Consumer Reports named Lexus the most reliable brand in its 2019 rankings, and the Lexus GS mid-size sedan, NX compact SUV and the GX are all listed as top 10 most reliable vehicles. Lexus has swapped places with Toyota for the top spot in this ranking for the past seven years.
There’s more: J.D. Power also ranks automotive assembly facilities, and in 2019 Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada took home the Platinum Plant Quality Award.
This is only tangentially related to Lexus, because this award is for the Cambridge North plant, which builds the Toyota RAV4.
It’s Cambridge South that builds the Lexus RX, and that facility received a bronze award last year and has previously won multiple gold awards.
It’s a testament to TMMC that Lexus vehicles are built in Cambridge in the first place: it was the first assembly plant outside Japan to be trusted with building Lexus vehicles when it acquired RX production in 2003.
When explaining this, Steven MacNeil, general manager of Lexus manufacturing at TMMC, makes reference to the Japanese term monozukuri. Its literal meaning is “the making of things,” but the term also implies a level of care and intention for excellence that’s infused into processes, a dedication to skill and pride in the end product without regard to the impact on a company’s bottom line.
Sweating the small stuff matters, according to MacNeil.
“We’ve been told before we’re kind of OCD when it comes to not only the design, but in our preparation and then our efficiency and quality as we go into mass production,” he said. “Whether that’s making sure our environment is clean so no dust gets into the engines or whether we’re torquing to the exact specification for every bolt, our motivation is to do everything to that specification to meet the customer requirement.”
Ensuring that new staff members can work to exacting specifications requires high standards of training, MacNeil said. “We send them to fundamental skill modules — like tightening or connectors or hose routing or painting, whatever the skill is — and they practise until they are proficient,” he said.
“Then, we send them line side, where the team leader takes over and matures their training skills. And then we go and follow up and make sure that they’re meeting those requirements.”
This is just the start. At Lexus production facilities in Japan, certain highly skilled staff members are referred to as Takumi masters.
It’s been said that it takes 10,000 hours of practice for someone to become an expert at their craft; Takumi masters train for 60,000 hours to earn the titles that certify them as master trainers.
One of the standards they must be able to meet is the ability to fold an origami cat with their non-dominant hand in 90 seconds. (Yes, this is a real thing.)
There are not yet any Takumi masters at TMMC, MacNeil says, but it’s a standard the facility is actively working toward.
The J.D. Power Plant Quality Awards mean a great deal within Lexus, and plants consider themselves in competition globally to win the most. TMMC is only one award away from surpassing its sister plant, Toyota Motor Kyushu in Japan, for having the most plant quality awards on the planet.
“Competition to be the global best in quality is healthy,” MacNeil said. “And in the end, that’s where the customer wins.”