Toyota Opens New Training Facility in Japan

Toyota is putting its focus back on quality after several years of experiencing issues that have gotten their fair share of negative press.

The Japanese automaker has opened a new training facility in Tajimi City, Japan that will focus on improving the skills of after-sales service staff at dealerships throughout the world as well as performing R&D in repair and maintenance technology. The new service center includes a four-story training facility and a drive-evaluation course with a 0.8-mile loop that encloses a series of short courses.

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The addition of the new center will allow the Japanese automaker to increase the number of trainees from 2,600 a year to 4,800 a year. In the future, Toyota plans to add R&D functions for repair and maintenance technology to the center in order to strengthen its global competitiveness in after-sales technology. Initially, the facility will carry a staff of around 70 employees, but will expand as more employees are transferred from the existing Nisshin Training Center and other facilities.

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At the center’s opening ceremony, Toyota President Akio Toyoda recalled a story of Kiichiro Toyoda, the founder of Toyota: “In 1935, Toyota launched the G1 truck, our first production vehicle,” he said. “Unfortunately, it was affected by a series of parts failures and it often broke down.” But what did Kiichiro Toyoda do each time a customer’s truck broke down? He personally went to the site of the breakdown, got under the truck to fix it and apologized over and over to the customer. The broken part would then go back to his home, where he will find out the cause of the issue, fix it, and improve future vehicles based on his findings.

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