May 9 2018
Inside Toyota’s Giant Kentucky Factory | Willy Shih | Forbes
“Japanese Production Techniques, Made In America. Last month I had the opportunity to visit the Toyota facto y in Georgetown, Kentucky, which is the largest vehicle assembly plant in Toyota’s global production network. I had last visited Georgetown 15 years ago, and the site has grown considerably since then. At 8.1 million square feet, it is the largest vehicle assembly plant in Toyota’s global production network. Not only can it produce 550,000 vehicles per year, it can make more than 600,000 engines annually.”
Sourced from Forbes
Michel Baudin‘s comments: Besides the above picture and the lead paragraph, there is essentially nothing in this article that couldn’t have been written without setting foot in the plant, which is disappointing from a publication like Forbes. For informative reports on factory tours, see Christoph Roser’s Grand Tour of Japanese Automotive Factories.
June 27, 2018 @ 3:10 am
The Toyota Production System is on full show at Georgetown, and explore of the massive factory leaves you surprised at the level of coordination. There is really little material sitting around waiting to be used – parts and subsystems are delivered just in time as they are necessary.
March 31, 2021 @ 11:11 am
Good Afternoon Mr. Baudin. Up until this article I had no idea that Toyota was manufacturing in the United States. At a massive 8.1 million square feet, why would Toyota decide to deal with these expensive start up costs and high wages in the US, when operations would likely be cheaper elsewhere. Also, I was surprised to see how many major factories were in Japan, and how these factories were grouped up in certain areas of the country