Visit to Mitsubishi Motors’ Okazaki Plant | Christoph Roser | AllAboutLean

Mitsubishi founder Yataro Iwasaki

“Mitsubishi Motors is the oldest of the major car companies in Japan, established 1917. It is also one of the smaller ones in Japan, with only slightly more than 1 million vehicles produced in 2016. In January 2018, I had the chance to visit their Okazaki plant near Nagoya. I also visited the Mitsubishi Fuso plant in Kawasaki and one of its suppliers, although that is technically another company. Let me give you the gist of the Mitsubishi Motors Plant Okazaki. […] As for corporate responsibility, Mitsubishi Motors does not have a good reputation. There were multiple scandals, dating back to 1970, where they covered up defects and manipulated their fuel efficiency. Their (former) president, Kawasoe, along with other managers was arrested and convicted. Mitsubishi Motors suffered and retreated. […] Nowadays Mitsubishi Motors is controlled by Nissan (the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi alliance).”

Sourced from AllAboutLean

Michel Baudin‘s comments: Another report from Christoph Roser’s grand tour of Japanese car plants, and a good remedy for anyone who still believes there is a “Japanese way” to manufacture. Just in the car industry, there are many players: Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Subaru,… and they are all different. Just check out Christoph’s other reports.

For me, one takeaway from this report is that you can retrofit self-driving technology to golf carts and use them to pull trains of part carts on a car assembly floor.

Part delivery train pulled by self-driving golf cart

#JapaneseCarPlant, #MitsubishiMotors