Insufficient Disk Space Cited as Cause for Toyota's Factory Shutdown in Japan

07 Sep, 2023

Insufficient Disk Space Cited as Cause for Toyota's Factory Shutdown in Japan

Toyota attributes the recent shutdown of all its Japanese factories to a system malfunction stemming from "insufficient disk space." The Japanese automaker disclosed that the suspension, which occurred on August 29th and affected all 14 of its domestic manufacturing plants, resulted from a breakdown in the servers responsible for processing vehicle parts orders. This malfunction followed a maintenance procedure carried out the previous day, during which accumulated database data was deleted and reorganized. An error arose due to a lack of available disk space, leading to the system's halt, Toyota reported on Wednesday.

Toyota, the world's leading automaker in terms of sales, emphasized that this incident was not caused by a cyberattack. The company issued an apology to its customers, suppliers, and affiliated parties for any inconvenience caused by the temporary shutdown of its domestic plants.

To address the issue, Toyota transferred the data to a server with greater capacity, successfully restoring the system and resuming production at these plants, which collectively account for approximately one-third of the automaker's global production. Toyota pledged to assess its maintenance procedures and bolster efforts to prevent a recurrence, with the goal of swiftly delivering vehicles to its customers.

Toyota is renowned for its "just-in-time" production system, which involves delivering necessary parts and items in small quantities at different stages of assembly. While this approach minimizes costs and enhances efficiency, last month's technical glitch highlights the associated risks.

It's worth noting that Toyota faced a similar situation in February of the previous year when it had to temporarily shut down the same 14 factories due to a virus infection reported by one of its suppliers, raising concerns about the cybersecurity of Japan's supply chains.