Panel Blames Takata’s Corporate Culture for Airbag Crisis

Without a major shift in its corporate culture, Takata Corp. has no hope of fixing quality lapses that have triggered recalls more than 40 million of its airbag inflators over the past nine years.

So says an independent panel created by Takata to determine how the company’s manufacturing approach may have contributed to the crisis. The group’s 47-page report points to “significant” shortcomings in Takata’s management practices, product design and production processes and its procedures for dealing with quality concerns.

Takata inflators, which can explode when triggered in a crash, have been linked to at least 10 fatalities and 139 injuries. Ten vehicle manufacturers are recalling vehicles equipped with the devices.

The panel condemns Takata for relying primarily on its customers and government regulators to monitor the quality of its products. It says the company must establish its own recording, testing and research procedures. Without major changes in Takata’s culture, the report adds, “even the most Herculean isolated efforts to improve quality” are unlikely to succeed.

The seven-member review team was headed by Samuel Skinner, a former U.S. transportation secretary, and included two former heads of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The panel’s mission was to assess Takata’s procedures, but not the design of the company’s flawed inflators.