Beijing – Toyota Motor Corp. may have pioneered the just-in-time manufacturing strategy, but its decision to stockpile the chips that have become key components in cars goes back a decade to the Fukushima disaster. After the catastrophe severed Toyota's supply chains on March 11, 2011, the world's biggest automaker realized the lead-time for semiconductors was far too long to cope with devastating shocks such as natural disasters. The automaker came up with a business continuity plan (BCP) that required suppliers to stockpile anywhere from two to six months' worth of chips, depending on the time it takes from order to delivery, four sources said. That's why Toyota has so far been largely unscathed by a global shortage of semiconductors following a surge in demand for electrical goods under novel coronavirus lockdowns that has forced many rival automakers to suspend production, the sources said. "Toyota was, as far as we can tell, the only automaker properly equipped to deal with chip shortages," said a person familiar with Harman International, which specializes in car audio systems, displays and driver assistance technology.

Autonomous driving startup Aurora announced on Tuesday that it has scored a partnership with Toyota to build self-driving taxis based on the Toyota Sienna minivan. Aurora says it's aiming to have a fleet of Sienna prototypes ready for testing on public roads by the end of the year. Denso, a major Japanese auto parts manufacturer, will also contribute to the project. This story originally appeared on Ars Technica, a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Ars is owned by WIRED's parent company, Condé Nast.

In March, Japan's largest auto parts maker, Denso Corp., was facing the urgent task of how to secure enough face masks for its workers given the mass shortage that was occurring amid the spread of COVID-19 infections. While the company, located in Kariya, Aichi Prefecture, had sufficient stocks of masks back then, executives were getting worried that if the company ran short, its production might be affected, since each factory worker needs five masks a day. At an executive meeting March 2, all eyes turned to Yasuhiko Yamazaki, 56, senior executive officer in charge of production, when he said, "How about making them ourselves?" After returning home, Yamazaki cut a mask he had with a pair of scissors, looked at its three-layered structure with nonwoven material used as a middle layer, and felt certain it could be made by Denso. The following day, he gathered seven to eight employees who were well-versed in auto parts production technology and were engaged in the designing and manufacturing of machinery and equipment.

This story is part of a collection of pieces on how we work today, from video conferencing to using productivity apps for off-label purposes to Silicon Valley culture. When Tony Huffman stepped away from the production line at the Denso auto part factory in Battle Creek, Michigan, to talk with WIRED earlier this month, the workers he supervised were still being watched--but not by a human. A camera over each station captured workers' movements as they assembled parts for auto heat-management systems. The video was piped into machine-learning software made by a startup called Drishti, which watched workers' movements and calculated how long each person took to complete their work. "In the past, we would take a line that was struggling and bring a bunch of people down with stopwatches to try and make it better," Huffman says--at least for problems that seemed serious enough to justify the time and expense.

When Tony Huffman stepped away from the production line at the Denso auto part factory in Battle Creek, Michigan, to talk with WIRED earlier this month, the workers he supervised were still being watched--but not by a human. A camera over each station captured workers' movements as they assembled parts for auto heat-management systems. The video was piped into machine-learning software made by a startup called Drishti, which watched workers' movements and calculated how long each person took to complete their work. "In the past, we would take a line that was struggling and bring a bunch of people down with stopwatches to try and make it better," Huffman says--at least for problems that seemed serious enough to justify the time and expense. Drishti tirelessly logs the "cycle time" for every worker and station all day, for every shift.

Employees toil at lines, doing the same task, repeatedly, in order to assemble a final product. A line stoppage or bottleneck can cost a fortune. What if the manufacturer could see what was going on, in real time, and fix any issues before they become real problems? Or come up with ways to make the process run smoother and more efficiently? That's the basic idea behind Drishti Technologies, a four-year-old startup cofounded by Prasad Akella, a 57-year-old Indian entrepreneur who's best known for leading the General Motors team that developed collaborative robots in the 1990s.

There's booming demand for silicon custom-designed to accelerate AI workloads, as the gobs of cash raised by startups like Hailo Technologies, Graphcore, and Untether AI demonstrates. The fierce competition isn't deterring Blaize (formerly Thinci), which hopes to stand out from the crowd with a novel graph streaming architecture. The nine-year-old startup's claimed system-on-chip performance is impressive, to be fair, which is likely why it's raised nearly $100 million from investors including automotive component maker Denso. Blaize emerged from stealth today with $87 million raised over several venture rounds from strategic and venture backers Denso, Daimler, SPARX Group, Magna, Samsung Catalyst Fund, Temasek, GGV Capital, SGInnovate, and Magna; the second-to-last round closed in September 2018 and totaled $65 million. The company initially focused on what it called vision processors -- chips to speed up vision, radar, and sensor fusion tasks -- before expanding to encompass datacenters, edge infrastructure devices, and enterprise client devices.

Uber's self-driving car unit has been valued at $7.3bn (£5.6bn), after receiving $1bn of investment by a consortium including Toyota and Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. With weeks to go until the loss-making San Francisco firm's stock market float, expected to value the company at up to $100bn, Uber said it had secured new financial backing for its plans to develop autonomous vehicles. Japanese carmakers Toyota and its compatriot Denso, a car parts supplier, will invest a combined $667m in Uber's Advanced Technologies Group (ATG). The remainder will come from Japanese conglomerate SoftBank's $100bn Vision Fund, whose largest investor is Saudi Arabia. Toyota and SoftBank are already major investors in Uber, with the latter owning 16%.

DENSO Corporation, the world's second largest mobility supplier, along with some of the startup companies it's backing, will be showcasing the future of mobility through its latest technology solutions at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, North Hall, booth #4619, from January 8-11, 2019. At the show, DENSO plans to feature the latest in automated driving and connected technology as part of its long-term commitment to help create the future of mobility. The technologies on display – from cybersecurity applications to cloud technology connecting vehicles to outside networks to carsharing features and more – further support the company's recent push into software-based solutions to complement its hardware expertise. They also represent the breadth and depth of technical areas DENSO is exploring and advancing to enhance safety and reduce environmental impact in the ever-changing mobility landscape. "Automotive is at a pivotal moment in which traditional products and parts are evolving and cloud computing, artificial intelligence and V2X are the future," said Bill Foy, senior vice president, Engineering, DENSO International America.

NAGOYA – Toyota Motor Corp. said Tuesday it will increase the number of its executive vice presidents to six from the current four, and tap Koji Kobayashi, vice chairman of affiliate Denso Corp., to fill one of the slots on Jan. 1. In a move to speed up efforts to adapt to the growing market for electric vehicles and advances in autonomous driving, the automaker will make the change three months earlier than usual. Personnel shifts are usually are made at the start of the fiscal year in April. Toyota, Japan's largest automaker, has focused on hybrid and fuel cell cars but has lagged behind rivals such as Nissan Motor Co. in offering EV models. In an attempt to catch up, Toyota teamed up with Denso and Mazda Motor Corp. in September to develop base technology for EVs through a new company.