Comments on: Toyota’s Texas Job Bank Open Until April 2009. Or Longer.

By: noreserve

noreserve — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:51:23 +0000

John Horner: Good point about the body-on-frame difference. I imagine that complicates things. I’ll check into the Canton plant out of curiosity.

Well, a quick search found this http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060107/AUTO01/601070335/1148

Not good. It would be interesting to find out how many of those problems in the Canton plant are related to being a flexible manufacturing plant versus just poorly designed/manufactured parts.

By: indi500fan

indi500fan — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:40:44 +0000

There’s no reason for the UAW to work on organizing transplants currently – they’re doing political action work. After “card check” passes early in 2009 (this is assuming an Obama presidency), all the transplants will be organized within 24 months.

By: John Horner

John Horner — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:57:24 +0000

Noreserve, you are onto a key difference between Honda and Toyota. Honda only builds vehicles off of a very few platforms and using a lot of common components. No body on frame anything, for example. Pilot and Ridgeline took a lot of heat for not being “real SUV/Trucks”, but Honda made some money while the making was good, yet preserved flexibility. Honda has forever focused on the fact that because they are smaller than Toyota they have to do more with less.

Toyota wanted in on the US truck boom and played all-in to try and get there. So they have a dedicated $2b factory in San Antonio which wasn’t set up to build anything but big trucks. Nissan avoided that mistake when they went after the same market with the Titan by building it in a highly flexible factory which is building everything from Altimas to Titans (Canton, Miss). Unfortunately, Canton hasn’t exactly been a paragon of quality or efficiency. The Titan is now all but dead with a planned replacement via badge engineering the Dodge Ram.

By: toxicroach

toxicroach — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:54:48 +0000

Its one of my pet theories that the only people who truly benefit in the long term from unions are the non-union workers. They get good pay and benefits for fear of them unionizing, and they work at companies who are flexible enough to stay healthy, so they are less likely to end up doing a cameo in Mikey & Me.

By: noreserve

noreserve — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:29:42 +0000

Two words: Flexible Manufacturing

Honda seems to be ahead here, although I haven’t done the research to know the details between T and H. I do know that Honda has been in the news recently regarding their ability to shift production quickly and to have multiple vehicles made at the same plant.

To have a plant dedicated to a specific model is fine if you’re running at full production. In this day though, it is inexcusable to design a brand-new plant that doesn’t have modularity and flexibility. Multiple programs, multiple robot arm ends, etc.

And I’m sure that GM could find SOME work for the idled workers. How about making sure someone puts the *%#$& “The Legend Lives” sticker on straight on the door of my Corvette. And make sure that the gas pedal doesn’t fall off in the first week.

By: GS650G

GS650G — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:27:44 +0000

So a big company CAN take care of workers without the muscle of the UAW to enforce it. Now that is news you can use. Maybe the average UAW worker should think about applying for a job with the transplants and find out all they are missing, like profits.

By: Robert Farago

Robert Farago — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:38:46 +0000

windswords :

Detroit has NEVER revealed the number of employees in its jobs bank. NEVER.

By: windswords

windswords — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:28:24 +0000

What’s top-secret about the Detroit 3’s job bank? It’s in the contract for anyone to see, isn’t it?