Modern automotive factories typically run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with the loss from even a short disruption typically measured in thousands or even millions of dollars. Last week, Toyota faced a huge and uncharacteristic shutdown across multiple Japanese factories, all thanks to an embarrassingly simple IT problem.
As covered by The Guardian, all 14 Toyota assembly plants in Japan faced an unexpected stoppage on August 29. It was all thanks to a breakdown of a key computer system responsible for ordering vehicle parts for Toyota factories. The cause of the problem? A full hard drive.
Toyota's just-in-time production system sees parts and components only delivered to the production line as needed. It's a boon to efficiency, but it can quickly lead to problems when things aren't operating perfectly. Thanks to this, the factories were unable to operate when the crucial system went down.
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