Day 12 - Toyota Plant

Today we went to Nagoya by bus and visited a Toyota vehicle assembly plant. The bus ride took about an hour and on the way there we stopped and ate lunch at one of the infamous Japanese rest stops. This is where you can purchase a ticket for the desired food item you would like and then take it to the counter where they will prepare your food. The tour of the Toyota plant was very interesting and I have to say the biggest surprise to me was that the workers were not frantically running around working at 100MPH. Everyone seemed to be very relaxed and had plenty of time to accomplish what they needed to. I have been to several assembly plants in the U.S. and it struck me that the Toyota line actually seemed to run slower in Japan than those in the U.S. The key is in the Toyota production system where the focus is on making the parts right the first time so that no re-work is required. It was nice to see this philosophy in action since it made apparent that quality was the primary objective on this assembly line.