Toyota Working Overtime
Toyota’s capacity utilization at U.S. plants dropped to 60 percent in the second half of 2008 after the economic crisis hit the U.S. Enough of this. Utilization is up to 90 percent already. Next year, Toyota plans to run its N.A. factories at full tilt. More than that: Workers will be doing overtime, work weekend and holiday shifts, says The Nikkei [sub].
Of course, the fact that NUMMI is off-line could also have something to do with it.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
More by Bertel Schmitt
Comments
Join the conversation
What do you want to bet, with all that O/T, Bob King et al. will have an uphill battle to organize the TMMC assy plants?
This is good news. For a moment I thought the unintended acceleration issue would seriously hurt Toyota, but it hasn't much. What's good for Toyota is good for America.
Both the Woodstock and Ontario Plants of Toyota have been working lots of OT now for several months, everything depends on your USA economy I suspect for all Manufacturers!
Whilst quietly in Europe, they've closed down one of two lines on the first plant they built over here (Burnaston, UK). Yes with redundancies (all voluntary according to local newspaper). ACEA shows that montly sales figures for June were 75K in 2008, 65K in '09 and this year 57K. Market share has fallen around 1.5% in that time.