The Prius That Shook.. - VFAQ Prius Site

section General Manager to supervise overall reliability.
The second was to "put in place a special team to
enable simultaneous coordination of THS and the car as a
whole." Since engine experts were seen as not fully capable of
handling this task by themselves, controls specialists from
Higashifuji were recruited. The new team met with those
who had developing THS, and asked that they put together
the newest technologies for the controls. The team created
a virtual model of the controls and conducted thorough safety
analyses.
The third step was to "create a special team to pick up
any uncertainty." Through constant questioning and
examination of every aspect of their work, the team began to
see problems in the hardware.
By getting his workers to focus on these three points
Yaegashi tried to raise his confidence level above five percent.
A hunch
Towards the end of February 1996, several young
engineers of Engine Engineering Division II were
absorbed in conversation over after-lunch coffee in the
cafeteria of the Higashifuji Technical Center.
"You know that hybrid vehicle, they say it is going into
mass-production. I wonder which department is doing the
engine."
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