Toyota is the company that applied the (since copied by everyone) kaizen philosophy in car manufacturing to improve both on quality and efficiency. Now it has done something different: instead of installing new robots on the new Camry assembly line in Kentucky, it retooled the old units from its former plant in California.
The decision played an important role in Toyota's successful attempt to reduce the new 2012 Camry’s price by 2% compared to its predecessor.
“A lot of the tooling is new, however the equipment isn’t”, said Toyota’s executive vice president for manufacturing and engineering in North America. “We used a lot of equipment from the now-closed New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. (Nummi) plant” he added.
Nummi was a joint venture in California between Toyota and General Motors that went belly-up when the latter went bankrupt to emerge as the New GM. Nummi is now owned by Tesla, which will use it to manufacture the Model S.
Despite Camry retaining the number one spot in US sales so far this year, its sales have decreased by 7% compared to 2010.
Toyota’s mid-size saloon is also feeling the heat from competitors: over the same period, sales of two of its direct competitors, the Hyundai Sonata and the Ford Fusion, have increased by 22% and 16% respectively.
Story source: Bloomberg
