Toyota will resume production in Japan Wednesday after system malfunction

Toyota will resume operations at its Japanese assembly plants Wednesday after a 24-hour stoppage caused by disruption to its finely-tuned supply chain. The world’s biggest automaker by sales said that its 14 vehicle factories in the country had paused activity Tuesday because a system malfunction that began on Monday was preventing it from processing orders for automotive components. Production is expected to be back to normal at all 14 plants in Japan from the start of the second shift on Wednesday, the company said in a statement. “It is our understanding that the malfunction of the system was not caused by a cyberattack. However, we will continue to investigate the cause,” Toyota (TM) said. “We would like to apologize once again to our customers, suppliers, and related parties for any inconvenience caused by the suspension of operations.” Toyota was a pioneer of “just-in-time” production, which is based on the delivery of component parts to assembly plants in the right quantities just before they are required. The system saves warehouse space and money but is vulnerable to disruption if any link in the chain is broken. It was not immediately clear how much output has been lost. Together, Toyota’s plants in Japan account for approximately a third of the automaker’s global production, according to Reuters calculations. Toyota delivered almost 10.5 million cars last year. By comparison, Volkswagen (VLKAF), which usually competes with the Japanese company for the global sales crown, sold 8.3 million vehicles in 2022. Last year, Toyota was forced to shut down Japanese production after a cyberattack on one of its suppliers led to a system failure and a similar issue obtaining automotive parts. The suspension lasted for one day.