Brown Sludge

Simple Slim – Toyota’s “Secret Weapon”

February 20th, 2006

David Nicklaus of the St. Louis Post Dispatch blogs today about Toyota’s astonishing “Simple Slim” concept and how they’ve turned a small factory in rural Missouri into an Innovation Machine.

He calls it “Toyota’s Aluminum Secret Weapon” and points to an article on Bloomberg News that touts the Bodine Aluminum plant in Troy, Missouri for having managed to find a way to cut the cost of a Camry engine in half.

Yes… I said in HALF.

He goes on to point out that Toyota :

has reduced the amount of aluminum in the engine by 27 percent while improving acceleration. It redesigned the cylinder heads to simplify the casting process. And it is replacing the Troy plant’s three-story casting buildings with 12-foot-tall machines that contain their own furnaces.

Bodine Aluminum is running 3 shifts a day to keep up with the demand. Weekends too.

Demand is so high they’re going to build out another facility and hire a metric ton of new workers.

Not in Japan – or China – or India – or Indonesia - or Mexico.

In Jackson Tennessee - Dawg.

Mr. Nicklaus zeros in on the bulls-eye :

Here’s a key quote from Dan Luria, an analyst at the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center: “Toyota is already one of the most-efficient producers. If they can improve this much, that spells big trouble for everybody else.’’

Unbelievable.

While I’m reading Mr. Nicklaus’ article – It occurs to me.

As Ford is decimating jobs in my city, Toyota is creating them.

As Ford and GM are dedicating their resources and vast sums of cash to finding ways to “offshore” every job or service they can get their hands on – and running as hard and as fast as they can run for that last freighter to China - Toyota is spending their money finding ways to make their cars BETTER and for less money – and they’re paying AMERICAN employees to find and implement those ideas.

The Bloomberg article provides the BFO (Blindingly Friggin’ Obvious) Point :

Ford and GM are struggling to keep up. As part of its effort to lower costs, Ford will close seven North American assembly plants by 2012. Detroit-based GM is also shuttering outmoded plants; it spent $1.3 billion on such cutbacks in the fourth quarter alone. GM’s overall goal is to cut fixed costs for global auto production to 25 percent of revenue by 2010 from about 34 percent in 2005.

Emphasis added.

And finally – the “tale of the tape” :

Toyota has pushed GM and Ford to the wall. The three Japanese automakers captured a combined 28.2 percent of U.S. sales in 2005, an increase of 2 percentage points. Ford and GM captured a combined 44.8 percent of sales, a 2.3 percentage point decline.

GM will spend $1.3 BILLION dollars finding ways to fire people and move their operations to another country.

Toyota spent a paltry $30 million for Bodine Aluminum - and ended up purchasing true innovative spirit.

While Ford and GM are busy cashing out the American Dream – the Japanese are busy cashing in on it. American soil. American workers. American innovation. American ingenuity. American productivity.

American drive.

Amazing.

Entry Filed under: General