The BT2 benchmarking study also revealed issues with product quality.

TMC's product quality initiatives included the establishment of the BR-MB Department in 2001 to raise quality levels. The department was set up as one of the company's business reform (hence, "BR") initiatives, and "MB" was an abbreviation of the Japanese phrase mizen boshi, meaning "prevention". The department's objective was to build a system that would prevent defective products from reaching the market. In 2002 the BR-MB Department was converted to a permanent fixture, the MB Promotion Department, working to strengthen quality initiatives not only within TMC, but also at supplier companies.

However, these initiatives were not able to keep up with the surge in production output that occurred during the first half of the 2000s. To address this situation from a company-wide perspective, TMC established the CF Activities Promotion Committee ("CF" meaning "Customer First") in April 2005, chaired by President Fujio Cho. Cho sent a message to all employees, stressing that "product quality is Toyota's lifeline", and asking them to increase their awareness of quality and heighten the strength of the workplace by adopting a customer first perspective in their work.

As part of such CF initiatives, the BR Jikotei Kanketsu Promotion Department was re-organized as within the company's Quality Group in January 2007, working to improve product quality by building a work system that would assure quality across all processes. Led by the department, a company-wide effort was commenced to reaffirm awareness of Toyota's fundamental policy of jikotei kanketsu, or building quality into each process. This effort included not only the usual targets, such as the shop floor or engineering divisions, but aimed to improve the quality of work performed by all workplaces across the company, including those in administrative divisions, and was also extended to suppliers.