Toyota's ‘Global Architecture’ Strategy to Drive Development & Design Integration

Toyota President Akio Toyoda announced recently that the world’s biggest automaker plans to introduce this year the company's first vehicles based on its new, sweeping product development strategy, called Toyota New Global Architecture (TNGA).

TNGA is an organization-wide strategy with several vehicle platforms and modularity at its heart. Under TNGA, Toyota defines a platform as a basic structure of a vehicle. The carmaker will design and produce common parts for major automotive systems in order to realize efficiencies and cost-savings across all of its products. By saving money and resources through common parts, Toyota will be able to direct those saved resources to model-dependent performance enhancements. TNGA will be an organizational philosophy as foundational as the carmaker’s legendary Toyota Production System.

Toyota’s new NS4 hybrid concept car.
(Source: Toyota)

In an interview with Design News, Stephanie Brinley, senior automotive analyst at research firm IHS, describes TNGA as “a complete approach to vehicle design and development from concept to final execution that includes greater commonality while allowing for greater differentiation.”

If that seems paradoxical, Brinley said, “The new process is structured to be able to develop shared fundamentals, with standard materials and processes, but also enable differentiation from region to region” and according to consumer preferences. In other words, the development of region-specific cars, light trucks, and other Toyota vehicles can be varied and tailored, even while the core automotive technologies are standardized and transferrable. Brinley says TNGA will achieve “simultaneous planning and development of multiple vehicle models concurrently.”

Toyota has reportedly commented that TNGA will cut its costs by two to three times compared with previous platform overhauls. By standardizing basic systems and parts, some component costs will reportedly be cut in half.

Toyoda took over as president in 2009 during an unprecedented financial crisis at the company. Since then, he has made sweeping changes aimed at regaining the carmaker’s global competitiveness and dealing with critical disruptions such as the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan and crippled production.

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TNGA is an outgrowth of Toyoda's ascendancy at the company, formulated not only to drive out costs but also to drive greater collaboration at all levels of the organization, which include Toyota’s vehicle development and design functions.

Toyota defines TNGA as a system for the basic structure of a vehicle, with a particular focus on the underbody, suspension, and, more than anything, the powertrain. Under TNGA, the carmaker is implementing an integrated approach to the development of these elements, including car engines. Toyota is introducing standardized front-wheel-drive platforms for compact, midsize, and large vehicles, as well as standardized development for rear-wheel-drive vehicles.

The automaker says it will release a new model this year on the midsize front-wheel platform. By 2020, half of Toyota's global sales will be from cars on the new platforms.

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Much of Toyota's recent announcement focuses on efficiencies that the company hopes to achieve in its auto production operations. How might TNGA affect product design and engineering? As it turns out, design engineering and production engineering at Toyota are becoming harder to separate, and that trend is intentional.

In March 2013, Toyota completed a new Powertrain Development and Production Engineering facility at its Honsha plant in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. The new plant co-locates R&D for both vehicle development and production under one roof.

A report from the company said the facility creates “an environment in which powertrain research and development staff can engage in face-to-face discussions with the staff responsible for production technologies and the development of production methods.” Bringing these fundamental operations together, Toyota wants to “create a system that can evaluate all stages of development, from fundamental technologies to finished vehicles and components.”

Locating R&D facilities together is meant to provide the kind of collaboration and accelerated feedback processes that Toyota says will ensure that new designs can be produced economically. Although Toyota doesn’t make reference to it, this co-location strategy indicates a move toward greater design-for-manufacturability. Toyota hopes to develop better cars and to produce them more economically. The platform strategy, with standardization of parts and components across vehicle models, should reduce time-to-market and decrease costs in procurement and manufacturing.

Al Bredenberg is a writer, analyst, consultant, and communicator. He writes about technology, design, innovation, management, and sustainable business, and specializes in investigating and explaining complex topics. He holds a master's degree in organization and management from Antioch University New England. He has served as an editor for print and online content and currently serves as senior analyst at the Institute for Innovation in Large Organizations.

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