Open, but vulnerable

The world of open technology is an excellent environment. There are so many things a manufacturer can do to take advantage of all the new tools. Throw in the Internet and you have a winning combination that will allow a manufacture to reap productivity dividends for years to come.
There is a downside, however.
This news hit the street this week: U.S. Central Intelligence Agency senior analyst Tom Donahue said, "We have information, from multiple regions outside the United States, of cyber intrusions into utilities, followed by extortion demands. We suspect, but cannot confirm, that some of these attackers had the benefit of inside knowledge. We have information that cyber attacks have been used to disrupt power equipment in several regions outside the United States. In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities. We do not know who executed these attacks or why, but all involved intrusions through the Internet."
He discussed this issue before a gathering of 300 U.S., UK, Swedish, and Dutch government officials and engineers and security managers from electric, water, oil & gas and other critical industry asset owners from all across North America.
Kudos to the CIA for making this information public. It would have been easy to hide this information, but instead they made the correct decision to go public.
If manufacturers don’t already, they had better get a security system in place.
Talk to me.

Toyota dealing with quality issues

It is always easy to bash the U.S. auto makers when it comes to running a company poorly or talking about auto quality. Let’s face it. They give plenty of ammunition.
What now seems interesting is when the leader of quality and production standards in the auto industry, Toyota’s President Katsuaki Watanabe, comes out and apologizes for all the recalls his company suffered through.
Has Toyota fallen into the same fat-cat trap the U.S. automakers have fallen into? Or are they continuing to show up the auto makers by quickly admitting a mistake, fixing it and moving on?
Watanabe said at the Detroit auto show Toyota workers “must carry the responsibility” for ensuring quality.
Recalls in the U.S. and Japan over the last two years hurt Toyota’s reputation for quality.
Toyota recalled 2.1 million vehicles in 2006. Last year, they cut down the recalls, but it was still about 1 million. Last October, Toyota recalled 470,000 vehicles in Japan, its fifth recall there during 2007.
Watanabe is now going through a “back-to-basics” campaign intended to prod employees to examine their own actions, not rely on the company’s widely studied quality control processes.
It will be interesting to see how Toyota does and how will it enforces its back to basics campaign. If this works for Toyota, maybe they will also become the leader in dealing with production issues. Are the Big 3 U.S. automakers watching?