Toyota arrived at Toyota South Africa’s Duran Plant last month, and so finished the Africa stage of its 5 Continents Drive Project. Launched in 2014, the project has now covered four of the world’s continents. From spring 2019, the project will move to Asia and embark on the final stage of the project, starting in the Middle East.
In addition to Toyota employees, members from SUZUKI MOTOR CORPORATION, Hino Motors Ltd., and TOYOTA AUTO BODY Co., Ltd. also participated in the Africa stage of the project; a total of 76 people covered 10,600 kilometers over a period of two months. The team drove across Africa’s diverse and wide-ranging roads, where they experienced first-hand the harsh conditions in which vehicles were used and listened to direct feedback from African customers. As a result, team members were moved to consider what it meant to make “ever-better cars,” exchanged views with their colleagues, and devoted themselves to thinking about cars.
Driving across a variety of harsh, unpaved roads beset by severe unevenness, sharp stones, corrugated road surfaces, and desert, the team was made to recognize the value of reliability, durability, and comfort. Even on paved surfaces, Africa presented a unique road environment: long straights, frequent animal crossings, large potholes that appear out of nowhere, speed bumps, and overtakes by large numbers of heavy, overloaded trucks. These circumstances impressed upon the team the importance of braking performance, high-speed stability, and power and torque.
The 5 Continents Drive Project is a genchi genbutsu project (where employees go to the source to get the facts) carried out under the umbrella of TOYOTA GAZOO Racing1. Toyota employees from Japan team up with local affiliates, take the wheels of the cars themselves, and drive the roads used daily by their customers. By participating in the project, team members increase their knowledge of the world’s roads, listen to customer feedback, encounter global cultures first-hand, and together find solutions to numerous problems and challenges. Such experiences enable them to hone their intuition for making ever-better cars in a manner that cannot be replicated at a desk or on test courses, and thereby contribute to the development of human resources.
The 5 Continents Drive Project commenced in Australia in 2014, then moved to North America in 2015, Latin America in 2016, Europe in 2017, and Africa in 2018. Since the project started, 556 members from inside and outside Japan have covered a total of 99,600 kilometers over a period of 399 days.
Based on the knowledge they have acquired through genchi genbutsu, participating members have shown a desire to proactively drive Toyota’s creation of ever-better cars forward. Indeed, some of the feedback from participants includes: “My experiences led me to review our vehicle evaluation items, and I have also taken advantage of them in my daily work”; “I rediscovered a sense of pride and responsibility in car-making”; “When making ever-better cars, I realized the importance of not being too focused on one’s own functions, and of thinking of the vehicle as a whole”; and “The project has taught me that there is a gap between what I feel and what our customers feel―it has made me more attentive to customer feedback and reexamine what they have to say in a more impartial manner.”
In spring 2019, Toyota will move to Asia and embark on the final stage of the 5 Continents Drive Project, starting in the Middle East.
1Toyota has participated in racing, which exposes cars to extreme conditions, as a way to “develop people.” Indeed, it believes that motorsports activities are the key to making ever-better cars.
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Source:Toyota
