Toyota is pushing forward with improvements at its engine plant in West Virginia after announcing $400 million in investments at the facility in September last year.
During a seminar on Monday, president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing West Virginia, Leah Curry, said that the Japanese automaker was dedicating almost 500,000 hours to retrain employees and streamline processes at the plant.
Speaking to Autonews, Curry said Toyota has analyzed and identified any “wasted motion of the team members” on the factory floor in order to make manufacturing as efficient as possible, a process which started in Japan with the Toyota New Global Architecture platform.
On average, the West Virginia engine plant produces 650,000 engines and 740,000 transmission a year but according to Curry, those figures will increase thanks to the new measures being employed to ensure not a single second is wasted.
This includes comprehensive renovations to the production line so workers now move with the engine and transmission. Additionally, workers are required to learn 50 per cent more processes under the program.
The Toyota New Global Architecture debuted in the latest Prius and is also used by the C-HR and latest-generation Camry.
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