Summary:
First Toyota Test of Small Aircraft,
New York Times, June 22, 2002. Toyota has conducted its first successful test
flight of a small airplane in May 31. The project had been developing for more
than three years and had not decided whether to manufacture. That is a one-hour
flight of the four-seat, single-engine plane took place near California's
Mojave Airport using an engine supplied by another company. Xavier Dominicis –
its spokeman, refused to say the name of the engine maker or say how much money
did Toyota spent on. Toyota decided to develop the plane in order to determine
whether its experience with vehicle aerodynamics and low-cost production of
autos could be applied to small aircraft. At that time, Toyota is known to be
among the most cost-efficient manufacturers. During a consultant firm in
Fairfax, director of aviation at the Teal Group states that Toyota would do
very well bringing their automotive manufacturing techniques to this industry.
However, he also afraid the market for single-engine aircraft is tiny. Mr.
Dominicis said that the Japan-based company had not decided to manufacture aircraft
for the retail market.
Picture of small aircraft flight test from Toyota
Opinion:
In my opinion, I think moving to manufacturing
small aircrafts would not give Toyota benefits. The reason is making a small
aircrafts does not similar with making cars. While Toyota has many successful
stories with cars, but it does not mean that they could produce well small aircrafts.
The truth is small aircrafts has a lot of different technologies and the
company also has to deal with safety for the passengers. Another big obstacle
is as the director of aviation at the Teal Group said above, the market is tiny
so even though Toyota is capable of making excellent small aircrafts, there
still have high risk that they can have huge beneficial from this project.
People still prefer driving a car and it’s still so expensive for end-client
afford to buy a small aircraft.
Question:
1. Do you think that moving to manufacture small air planes of Toyota is a good idea ?
2. If Toyota decide to manufacture small air planes in large scale, what are their difficulties ?
References
First
Toyota Test of Small Aircraft. June 22, 2002. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/22/business/first-toyota-test-of-small-aircraft.html
Photo, retrieved from http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=2312dc76-4b15-451b-8e85-fe9b23ace6ee
- Moving manufacturing to small air planes for Toyota poses a risks of losing revenue. When you think of Toyota, you automatically think of a car company and not an aircraft. I’m not too sure if there that branding confusion will be of benefit for the brand.
ReplyDeleteo If Toyota decides to manufacture small air planes in large scale, the difficulties lie on the company’s expertise is advertising and selling a different product. I admire Toyota for taking risk in order to create innovation and creativity within its organization, however the jump from cars to airplanes might cost them money. Besides there is always that balancing necessary in business decisions: balancing between risks and benefits of new inventions.
Moving to the manufacturing of small air planes will prevent toyota on focusing on their main source of income which is cars. Expanding on different vehicles will take time away from focusing on important factors of the automobile industry and could cause them to fall behind to their competitors.
ReplyDeleteIf Toyota decides to manufacture small airplanes in large scale it could pose a couple of problems; Toyota is a well known name in the car industry but if it starts in the airplane industry it will have to build its name and get people to be as interested in them as the other companies. Also, Toyota would also have to spend quite a bit of money expanding, buying parts, machinery & finding new employees that have enough knowledge to build & repair planes.
1. Do you think that moving to manufacture small air planes of Toyota is a good idea ?
ReplyDeleteBoth Teresa and I do not believe that moving towards the manufacturing of small airplanes is a good idea because it seems to be a populated industry. By that we mean the manufactures who have experience in making planes have built a name, and been through the ifs and ands.
2. If Toyota decide to manufacture small air planes in large scale, what are their difficulties ?
The difficulties that Toyota would have would be once again, be the overall sales in attracting loyal clients. Would you agree?
1. I don't think that moving towards the manufacturing of small airplanes is a good idea because it can be highly risky. Sometimes there can be a defect in the aircraft or any other problems which can be very harmful for the company. Since, the problem may result in the death of the passengers if anything goes wrong.
ReplyDelete