Page 207 - Toyota Under Fire

TOYOT A UNDER FIRE

between fifth and sixth gears at highway speeds. This
momentary rpm increase is designed to enhance the life
of the catalytic converter.
• Air conditioning or power steering idle-up. On vehicles
with an engine-driven A/C compressor or hydraulic
power steering, the engine idle rpm will increase as
the feature is engaged. This is especially apparent at a
stop or at slow speed, as the engine needs to idle up to
prevent the risk of a stall.
• Intelligent cruise control. A number of newer-model
vehicles have optional adaptive cruise control that
can sense the distance of the car ahead and adjust the
speed to maintain a constant following distance rather
than requiring the driver to constantly disengage and
reengage the cruise control. When the cruise control has
slowed the vehicle and the car in front moves out of the
travel lane, the cruise control automatically boosts the
speed to the speed setting that was originally input. For
customers who do not understand this feature, it feels as
if the car is suddenly accelerating on its own.
The creation and rapid deployment of SMART was possible
only because of decisions that were made during the recession,
or, more properly, not made. As detailed in Chapter 2, Toyota,
unlike its competitors, didn’t lay off any of its regular employees
during the recession, and as a result of having a full staff, it was
able to reassign 140 engineers and 100 field engineers and techni-
cians who were highly knowledgeable about Toyota vehicles and
trained in Toyota problem solving to create SMART. Strict adher-
ence to the Toyota Way in the past was rescuing Toyota’s future.
We saw in Chapter 2 how quickly Toyota was able to restore

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