Toyota Tundra, Tacoma made fast and furious in Texas
Seventeen miles south of downtown San Antonio, a 2.2-million square foot, 2,000-acre facility has the nondescript outside appearance of many manufacturing plants. Inside, its automotive matrix never stops.
It’s called the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Texas, and it’s where every Toyota Tacoma and Toyota Tundra cruising around the Bay Area or anywhere else in the country and 10 years old or newer was made. Toyota calls the plant that manufacturers about 200,000 Tacoma and Tundra trucks per year a campus.
The plant’s efficiency shattered my image of automobile manufacturing plants. The sweatshop image I’ve viewed in movies and read about in tragic examples of worker exploitation was replaced by a modern, efficient, environmentally savvy city of state-of-the art technology. It’s a factory where machines and humans work together in a healthy, constantly moving indoor environment.
The facility has 7,200 employees. The majority rotate day and night shifts in two-week intervals. Employees are trained in multiple jobs to avoid the monotony of working daily on an assembly line.
There’s a progressive work environment with on-site childcare and mandatory 10-minute breaks every two hours. Employees are required to exercise, much of it to strengthen range-of-motion. A truck rolls off the line every 60 seconds.
Most of the factory view is from a slow-moving electric tram. It meandered along spotlessly clean and shiny floors and through an intricate highway of paths. The route often paralleled workers adding panels, powering in bolts, attaching cushions, painting and checking systems into trucks passing along the assembly line.
Toyota had the No. 1 (Camry) and No. 2 (Corolla) selling cars in the United States in 2015 and the No. 5 (Tacoma) and No. 6 (Tundra) top-selling trucks. Toyota has also recalled millions of vehicles in recent years. But the Toyota factory provided a positive impression of the manufacture and plenty of reasons why the company’s vehicles sell so well.
Robots paint the majority of Toyota trucks; humans apply the paint in hard-to-reach areas. Workers in the painting areas are required to achieve
a 90 percent accuracy score in training. A steady hand and concentration to apply the paint evenly is required.
Cleanliness in the workplace is emphasized. Volunteers participated in a two-part test. They placed their hands on a metal test plate and did it again on an adjacent square after wiping their hands on their faces. Perfumes, cologne, deodorants, etc., often include ingredients not allowed in the work environment. The tests are given twice daily and employees who don’t pass are required to bathe before going to work.
During the tour tram ride, the driver stopped at every intersection, sounded a horn and made eye or hand contact with other equipment operators, employees walking, project supervisors on patrol and delivery staff. Walkway overhangs and restricted areas were all marked clearly. Omnipresent monitors provided details of work stations and areas where problems in the workplace occur.
A year or so ago, Toyota acquired the best possible testimonial to its trucks — a 2007 Toyota Tundra driven more than one million miles. Victor Sheppard, who owns several Toyota trucks, drove the Tundra approximately 125,000 miles per years for nine years.
Toyota bought the truck from its original owner to promote the brand. In return, it gave Sheppard a new Tundra as a replacement for the one he bought new for $26,850. Its current value is about $8,000.
The Toyota facility is located at 1 Lone Star Pass, Bldg. 47, San Antonio, Texas, 78264. Complimentary tours are offered Monday through Friday at 9 a.m., noon and 1:30 p.m. Tours last approximately 1 1/2 hours and reservations are required and available by calling the visitor center 210-263-4002.