Case Study: Toyota turns employee ideas into apps and boosts productivity with Microsoft Power BI

Toyota Motor North America turns employee ideas into apps with Microsoft Power Platform

Toyota tapped Microsoft Power BI (and the broader Microsoft Power Platform) to democratize app development across the company, addressing the need to speed innovation, improve product quality and safety, and respond quickly to COVID-19 while preserving data security and governance. To do this, Toyota gave employees access to Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, Power Virtual Agents and Azure AI services and established a Center of Excellence to train makers and enforce approval and security policies.

Using Microsoft Power BI, Toyota trained thousands of employees who built more than 400 apps and 90+ COVID-19 dashboards—examples include a Fast Approval System launched in two weeks and an accessory inspection app using Computer Vision and Azure Machine Learning. The results include a 98% reduction in time from first incidence to an actionable report, expanding dealer surveys from 5% to 100%, individual savings like 10 hours/month for one employee, and a scalable governance model aimed at 80% self-service development.

Toyota

Christopher Hitt

Assistant Manager, Field Technical Operations