Bird's-eye view of
Takaoka Plant (1966)
Toyota decided to construct the Takaoka Plant as a dedicated
passenger car plant in order to mass-produce the Corolla and achieve monthly
production of 100,000 units. Toyota began purchasing for a plant approximately
1.25 million square meters of hilly land that straddled Takaoka-cho (now a part
of Toyota City), Miyoshi-cho (now Miyoshi City) and Kariya City in Aichi
Prefecture in May 1965 and established the Takaoka Plant Construction Committee
with Director Masaaki Noguchi as its chairman in December.1 Plant construction
began in January 1966 based on the following policies:
1.Plant to have a monthly production capacity of 20,000
units.
2.Production vehicle to be a new mass-market car (Corolla).
3.In the future, to be made into an integrated plant from stamping
to assembly.
Takaoka Plant was laid out as a passenger car manufacturing
plant from stamping to assembly processes with monthly production capacity of
16,000 units at the time of completion of the first phase of construction. The
plant was to be expanded in stages in conjunction with the pace of increased
production.
Electrostatic
painting process (Takaoka Plant, around 1967)
The first phase of construction was completed in September
1966 and included a body line, a painting line, and an assembly line as well as
a 2,300-meter test track. A completion ceremony was conducted in December of
that year.
Numerous welding presses were installed in the body welding
processes of the body line. For the welding assembly process, a loop line
format in which the welding was done on jig platforms that were transported on
a circular conveyor was used, greatly increasing assembly efficiency and
precision.
State-of-the-art auto painting equipment was adopted for the
painting line. The latest technology was introduced to achieve smoother,
shinier, and more uniform painting, prevent corrosion, improve workability, and
reduce costs. And in a first-time combination, electrophoretic
(electrodeposition) painting and electrostatic painting were used together with
a new method for applying the top coat.
Toyota also installed for the first time a computer-based
online control system for production control. Work orders for the painting and
assembly lines were issued from a central control room, and the status of
inventories of delivered parts and the operating conditions of equipment were
centrally controlled.
The Corolla was a strong-seller since its announcement in
the autumn of 1966, and production had trouble keeping up with sales. In
response, Toyota began building the No. 2 Assembly Plant on the south side of
the No. 1 Assembly Plant in July 1967, and construction was completed in
January 1968. The No. 2 Assembly Plant comprised body welding processes beyond
the main body line as well as painting and assembly lines. In addition, the
existing stamping plant was expanded, and the body line was expanded in March
1968.
In conjunction with full-fledged highway development that
began in the 1960s, the required high-speed performance and reliability of
automobiles became increasingly rigorous. For this reason, Toyota began to
search for large tracts of land as sites for plants with high-speed test tracks
and adequate testing and research facilities. Toyota found the 2 million square
meters of land in what is now Susono City in Shizuoka Prefecture in June 1965.
Automobile Proving
Ground and the Higashifuji Proving Ground (1967)
The first phase of construction was immediately started, and
in November 1966, an automobile proving ground was completed, followed by a
passenger car assembly plant in March 1967. The completion ceremony was
conducted on May 10.4 This plant, known as the Higashifuji Plant, initially
produced the Toyota Sports 800 and other vehicles that had been produced by
Kanto Auto Works, Ltd., and it outsourced production at the plant to Kanto Auto
Works. The high-speed test track of the automobile proving ground had a total
circuit length of 3.7 kilometers with a flat straightaway of 1.3 kilometers and
featured a seamless asphalt surface for the entire course, which included
curved sections.
In preparation for monthly production of 100,000 units,
Toyota decided to construct a dedicated machining plant to raise the
productivity of its passenger car plants even further and reinforce its
production systems. In May 1967, Toyota purchased approximately 300,000 square
meters of land for a new plant in Uchikoshi, Miyoshi-cho, Nishikamo-gun (now,
Miyoshi City), Aichi Prefecture, which is near both the Motomachi and Takaoka
plants.
Bird's-eye view of
Miyoshi Plant (1968)
In March of that year, the Miyoshi Plant Construction
Committee was established with General Manager Yasumasa Ishihara as its
chairman. The committee adopted a construction plan for a machining plant that
would focus on production of passenger car suspension parts and other small
sub-assemblies, and the first phase of construction was started in September.
Operations began in stages in March 1968, and a ceremony to mark completion of
the entire plant was conducted in July. The No. 1 Machining Plant specialized
in machining and assembly of steering components and propeller shafts, and the
No. 2 Machining Plant focused on mass production by cold forging of small parts
such as piston pins and specialized bolts.
As Toyota was focusing its energies on achieving monthly
production of 100,000 units, President Fukio Nakagawa passed away suddenly on
October 13, 1967 as a result of a heart attack.
After joining Toyota Motor Co., Ltd. from Teikoku Bank
following the 1950 labor dispute, then-Senior Managing Director Nakagawa regularly
aided President Taizo Ishida and made contributions to Toyota's restoration and
prosperity. Following his appointment as president in 1961, he spent busy day
after busy day in back-to-back negotiations with various parties. On the day he
died, President Nakagawa had attended a conference in Tokyo and suddenly passed
away after returning to Nagoya.
President Eiji Toyoda
(1967)
Following the death of President Nakagawa, Vice President
Eiji Toyoda was appointed president on October 30. A short time later,
President Toyoda made the following statement concerning his appointment:
:Even though the president had passed away, there were other
representative directors, and there would be no particular impediment to the
company's operations in the short term, so the position was left vacant until
President Nakagawa's funeral. I was appointed president on October 30. ...
I felt no different as president than I had as a managing
director or executive vice president. What amazed me, however, was the
difference in attitude of those around me. ... When Toyota was founded, aside
from Kiichiro, only I and Shoichi Saito had graduated from college. Unless we
stood up and took the initiative ourselves, the company wasn't going to go
anywhere. We had to stay on our toes. Then, before I knew it, the company had
grown into a large corporation and I was sitting at the top.”
Moving Up to Annual
Production of 2 Million Units: Construction of Tsutsumi Plant and Expansion of
Existing Plants
In October 1968, in the midst of Japan-U.S. automotive
negotiations concerning the liberalization of automotive capital, Toyota
achieved the 100,000 unit monthly production that it had long sought. In order
to prepare for the liberalization of capital, Toyota worked to further develop
its mass production systems. Annual production of 2 million units was one
target for conducting business at the same levels as advanced European and U.S.
automakers in a time of free competition. At that time, only two
manufacturers-General Motors Corporation (now General Motors Company) and Ford
Motor Company-had achieved annual production of 2 million units.
In order to establish production systems capable of annual
production of 2 million units and to respond to the diversification of demand
in passenger car markets, Toyota embarked on construction of the Tsutsumi
Plant, its third dedicated passenger car plant following the Motomachi Plant
and the Takaoka Plant.
Preparations for the Tsutsumi Plant site began in January
1967 following an invitation to establish a plant. Land was acquired from March
1969 until the following March, and the site area reached approximately 1
million square meters. The site was only about six kilometers from Toyota Motor
Co., Ltd. headquarters and was roughly central to the Honsha, Motomachi,
Kamigo, Takaoka, and Miyoshi plants.
Based on repeated investigations starting in 1968, the
following concepts for the Tsutsumi Plant adopted:
1.A production site for the Celica and Carina.
2.A machining and heat processing production site equal to
the Honsha Plant.
3.A transmission production site equal to the Kamigo Plant
that also produces aluminum diecast components.
4.A passenger car production site that performs processes
from stamping to total assembly equal to the Motomachi Plant and the Takaoka Plant.
5.A production plant for newly developed parts such as
plastic components.
6.Stamping dies, diecast dies, plastic dies, and other dies
will be manufactured to reinforce molding capabilities.
Until that time seat production had been outsourced, but production
was brought in-house at the Tsutsumi Plant in order to improve seat design
capabilities and streamline production. Also, the Tsutsumi Plant was to be
given the ability to be an injection molding, fiber-reinforced plastic, and
plastic processing plant to respond to the widespread adoption of plastic
components with the objective of making cars lighter.
The Tsutsumi Plant Construction Committee was established in
January 1969 with Managing Director Hideo Tsutsumi as its chairman, and the
layout of the new plant was decided in February. The plant site was divided
into the machining and casting zone on the east side and the stamping and
assembly zone on the west side. The automotive body shop and the machining shop
had an extensive area of 200,000 square meters and 100,000 square meters,
respectively. Also, it was decided to make the assembly plant a two-story
structure.
Assembly line at
Tsutsumi Plant (1970)
The site preparation work was completed in July 1969, and
full-fledged plant construction began. The buildings were generally completed
by the end of the year, and state-of-the-art facilities were installed in
stages. Operations at the aluminum casting shop began in April 1970, followed
by the start of operations in the machining shop in May, and production of
suspension parts for the Celica and Carina commenced. Later, the stamping shop
began operations in October followed by the body, painting, and assembly shops
in November. A plant completion ceremony was conducted in December of that year
at the assembly line.
The assembly line in the body shop adopted a new gate-line
method for the side member and underbody attachment processes to enable the
production of two types of vehicles on the same line. This method allows the
installation jigs for the side member parts and underbody parts to be removed
and attached freely, allowing the production ratio of the Carina and Celica,
which share a common underbody but have different styles, to be modified at
will, supporting changes in production.
In order to establish a 2 million unit production system,
Toyota also actively expanded its existing plants in parallel with the
construction of the Tsutsumi Plant. New plant buildings were constructed nearly
every year at the Kamigo Plant to accommodate development and application of
new engines and transmissions. The second phase of construction of the Kamigo
Plant No. 7 Machining Plant was completed in February 1970 and the No. 4
Casting Plant was constructed in March of that year to make up for insufficient
production capacity of the K series engine and R series engine and in
preparation for the start of production of the T series engine used on the
Carina and Celica.
Source: Toyota Motor Corporation
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