“Future demands for customer service levels are likely to be higher than the industry generally offers today” claims Nick Duckworth, Senior Vice President Services, Toyota Material Handling Europe, talking about the company’s recently published Toyota Service Concept (TSC)
 
 “Our aim is to lead the market in Europe, and that means having excellent products, and also service levels that not only meet customer expectations today, but also anticipate what they will be expecting tomorrow” explains Duckworth, when discussing Toyota’s Service Concept – or TSC as it is known.

“Toyota has had a massive impact on manufacturing processes with its Toyota Production System - or TPS - and it has been adopted in many different industries around the world, with terms like ‘just-in-time’, and ‘lean’ very much at the heart of modern thinking. Even Japanese terms like ‘kaizen’ – which means continuous improvement – have found their way into international vocabulary and business planning processes. What we have now done is to take the type of thinking that went into TPS and adapted it to suit the requirements of customer service for industrial products.”

Duckworth explains that the concept has been developed over a number of years: “We started the journey more than a decade ago, and really tried to challenge ourselves to understand the type of support that our customers would be wanting in the future, and also the way that technology could support our operations. One of the first things that we did was to eliminate paper from our service processes, putting all of our technicians on-line. Not only did this reduce a lot of waste, in terms of documentation and weight of materials in our vans, with consequent fuel savings, but it also opened a series of advantages to streamline the way we work.”

What sort of improvements has this brought? “Apart from obvious benefits like streamlined administration, there are real advantages in the way that we now support our technicians. For example they always have the complete truck service history available when working on site, together with the very latest parts information and technical support,” explains Duckworth.

He stressed the importance of customer feedback: “We regularly survey our customers to gain feedback – in fact in the past two years alone we have conducted over six thousand customer surveys across Europe. We are also talking to customers continuously, as we carry out over 3.5 million service calls every year. The message is clear. The most important issue for customers is reliability. In fact twelve out of the top sixteen criteria for customer satisfaction related to reliability and service-related issues.”

Duckworth explained more about the way the Toyota Service Concept works: “It’s very much like the Toyota Production System, as it is built on a series of twelve values that we work to in the way that we plan and manage our service operations. Many of the values are shared with TPS, including things like Kaizen (continuous improvement), Elimination of waste, and Genchi Genbutsu, which means going to the source to find facts and make correct decisions. We have also developed certain service-specific values such as Real-time information, which is at the heart of our on-line systems, and Responsiveness, which is of course vital. Other values include Exact fit – which not only refers to things like replacement parts, but also to trucks supplied for peak-time back-up - and in particular to ensure we have an exact fit when it comes to the scope of service agreements and the competence level of the technicians, matching the trucks that they are working on.”
So how does the Toyota Service Concept differ from services offered by other manufacturers? Nick Duckworth is clear: “There are many areas that are unique in the way that we work. For example, our on-line systems are truly on-line. Most service operations that use electronic devices like hand-held computers simply collect data and periodically upload and update other systems. With TSC our technicians and back-up staff are permanently online and therefore dealing with absolutely up-to-the-minute information. It means a technician can work on any truck, anywhere, and be fully informed and supported with, for example, truck history data.”

He continues: “The same applies to our truck systems. We are the only company using smart truck technology to gather data from trucks real-time over 3G or GPRS networks. There is no requirement for complex communication systems – it’s all web-based and gives instant access to a wealth of data.”

Duckworth explains that this type of smart truck technology has been the heart of the award-winning Toyota I_Site fleet management system that provides a wide range of information to allow customers to manage fleet utilisation, driver activities and to track costs. It is particularly valuable when upgraded to include control of pre-operational checks, and collision sensors - with positive implications for safety. This type of remote safety management is now offered by Toyota even to one-off truck users, with alerts that can be transmitted via an iPhone app.

So what next for the Toyota Service Concept? Nick Duckworth concludes, “TSC is a journey. We started it over ten years ago and the results are already evident in the way that we are working with our customers today. Like TPS it is an ongoing process and it steers our approach to everything we do. So we are already planning how we can further improve the way that we will be working tomorrow.”

And the customers’ reactions? “I am pleased to report that we have high satisfaction levels exceeding 90% throughout all of our surveys.”