"Simple Slim" Engine Production Powers Profits at Toyota

By Jon Miller | Post Date: February 26, 2006 10:47 AM | Comments: 1

The February 25, 2006 article in Macleans highlights Toyota's approach to kaizen at the product design and production preparation process. The challenge of 50% cost reduction in the foundry were announced in 2003 and 300 Toyota engineers were put to work on developing a new process. The photographs in the article give you a peek at the new casting process at Toyota.

While noting that GM has cut production hours for engines and Ford has made some progress in simplifying the number of engine types used, the article points out:

The question that General Motors should be asking itself is, why make a total of six V6 engines and borrow another from Honda, adding complexity and resultant cost to the automaker's bottom line, when the only truly competitive GM V6 to Toyota's 3.5, or for that matter Honda's 3.5-, Nissan's 3.5-, Hyundai's 3.3- and 3.8-, or Ford's all-new 3.5-litre V6, is the 3.6-litre unit only available in the Cadillac CTS, SRX and STS, plus the Allure? Wouldn't it be simpler, more efficient and therefore potentially cheaper to make one extremely good V6 engine, rather than five that don't really measure up to the competition?

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review also picks up the same story and gives a description of cellular manufacturing of engines through the casting processes, creating a "mini-factory" and reducing work in process.

While many business leaders today hold their noses at work that is done in factories and chase after something called innovation (products of tomorrow), a company called Toyota steadily cuts cost by large margins by kaizen and genchi gembutsu - making a better manufacturing process for the products of today.

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