Yea, yea, yea….
We all know the auto industry is hurting. Sales are down with all car makers, everyone seems to be cutting back… Now it turns out that Toyota will be delaying the start of production indefinitely at a plant that was set to make the Prius.
I want you to take a read on this section of the article:
Mike Goss, a spokesman for Toyota’s U.S. arm, said Monday that the plant’s construction is about 90 percent complete, and Toyota will finish the building. However, the installation of the factory’s equipment and machinery — “the most time-consuming” element of construction, he said — is delayed indefinitely.
The roughly 100 people who have been hired to oversee construction and install human resources plans at the plant will not lose their jobs and will be assigned other duties, Goss said.
“Those people’s jobs are safe, and we’ll find things for them to do,” he said.
Much like the Japanese invited Dr, Deming, the defacto source on improving production in the United States during World War II, to come an provide input on their new processes why don’t US companies turn to Japanese auto makers for their input? The – no – any company with supply chain issues (hello detroit) should be taking a page out of that very play book.
Get your managers to show our manager how to make become profitable via process improvement. Maybe if that was in place today, the company would be able to find other jobs for worker instead of simply laying them off…