"Jeff" <news (AT) googlemail (DOT) com> wrote

I have never heard of an instance where an American assemnbly line worker
was afraid to stop the assembly line at one of Toyota's North American
plants.

Most of the engineers are hired locally so they are not workingg in a
different country.

The only thing that
Toyota has had satellite teleconferencing equipment at most of its
facilities since the late 1980's. I thought it would be a great way to
reduce the amount of travel I had to do, but after using it 2 or 3 times, I
realized that it was a poor substitute for instilling team spirit when
sitting and socializing in the same room. From a technical point of view,
technical people prefer to lay their hands on an item rather than look at a
video picture.
--

Ray O
(correct punctuation to reply)

If one looks at CR reports as the percentage that it actually is, rather
than as a list, you will discover that the number of defects in vehicles is
at the lower end of the 2% to 3% average for all manufacturing. Chances of
getting one of the 98% are far greater than one of the 2% that may have
problems, one might suspect

The average for all vehicles in not 2.29 but .0229%, just over 2%. The
difference is actually not 0.21 or 0.5 problems, but .021% and .005%.
Hardly worth spending 20% to 30% more to drive home a Toyota of a similar
size and equipped domestic. But hey who ever said Toyota buyers were very
astute shoppers?

If you are the average new car buyer in the US you will replace it with
another new vehicle in three to four years, with 30K to 45K on the clock.
ANY new vehicle one buys today will easily go twice that mileage before
needing any repairs. Why pay 20% to 30% more to drive any one home over any
other?

Most of the guy in this NG are used car buyers. They will tell you they
bought a Toyota because the five year old domestic, they bought used ten
years ago, broke down but the five year old Toyota they bought two years ago
runs fine.

Even it that were true, if you run a vehicle up to the more than average
140K, say 200K over seven years before you get another, and need to replace
the power steering pump on the import at 120K at a cost of $200 and you
needed to change the one on your domestic
110K, at a cost of $120, what have you saved?

They like to point to the "higher" resale value of a Toyota, yet forget the
much higher drive home price when the purchased the Toyota. In three years
a Toyota my be worth say $3,000 more, or $1,000 more used in seven years,
than a domestic but at an initial drive home price of $5,000 MORE when new,
or $3,000 MORE to buy used, which has the better resale value?

The truth of the mater the record kept in our fleet service business, proved
Japanese brands cost more to acquire, insure, maintain, repair and replace
than those from domestics. On that basis Ford vehicles were by far the most
costs effective. That is one reason few corporate fleets, who generally
keep the vehicles in service for five years or 300K WOF because of federal
deprecation tax laws, buy few Japanese cars and the reason Ford sells over
75% of the vehicles purchase by corporate fleets. If you look at the
imports fleets do buy, with the exception of luxury vehicles, they are
Korean cars. Few corporate fleets imported trucks.

mike



"C. E. White" <cewhite3 (AT) removemindspring (DOT) com> wrote

"Ray O" <rokigawaATtristarassociatesDOTcom> wrote

http://select.nytimes.com/search/res...AB0894DF404482

Yeah, but if you live in CA, it is hard to commute to work with others at
different Toyota facilities in different parts of the US.

Right. And you have two copies of the item, one at each location. Or a
virtual item that you can manipulate it in a computer. It doesn't eliminate
the need to interact in person, but it does decrease it, at least according
to my experience.

Jeff

"Jeff" <news (AT) googlemail (DOT) com> wrote

The link requyired registering for the NY Times site, which I did not feel
like doing. If the article cites instances where workers were not willing
to stop the assemblyline, I'll take your word for it.

Just because I have never heard of an instance doesn't mean they they don't
exist ;-)

There are several different types of engineers. The ones who work with the
manufacturing and assembly operations work out of Toyota Motor Manufacturing
North America's Erlanger, KY headquarters just out side of Cincinnatti.

Product engineers who work on service issues work out of Toyota Motor Sales'
headquarters in Torrance, CA just south of LAX.

And yes, no matter where they are stationed, it does get to be a drag being
on the road all the time, which is one of the reasons I am no longer there.
As a district service manager and district manager, I would be in the office
on Mondays and on the road Tuesday through Friday, or 4 out of 5 weekdays on
the road. In my last position, it was more like 1 week at a dealership and
1 week in the office so it wasn't so bad. My next move would have been to
Torrance, where I probably would have ended up with a 90 minute commute, no
thanks.

prototype of a part or component exists, and the virtual part thing is
usually the step before prototyping. Toyota is very into processes, so they
would want their engineer to see the process at the facility where the part
is being made.

From a product engineers side, they are usually looking at customers'
vehicles that are brought to a dealership for either a survey or for a
problem that the regional people were not able to fix, so they have to go
see the cars
--

Ray O
(correct punctuation to reply)

On Apr 23, 2:10 pm, "Ray O" <rokigawaATtristarassociatesDOTcom> wrote:

I agree with you 100%. The only thing worse than a video conference is
a telephone only confrence. I have to joint 4 or 5 video and telephone
conference ever week. They just wear you down. I don't mind them for a
quick decision when people are just trying to iron out the last minor
detials. However, when there are major issues they just suck.

Ed

On Apr 23, 2:29 pm, "Jeff" <n... (AT) googlemail (DOT) com> wrote:
I'd love to read this, but they want me to pay....

Ed

On 23 Apr 2007 12:44:17 -0700, Ed White <ce.white3 (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

Me too....




--

Scott in Florida

"Ed White" <ce.white3 (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote


I would post the report, but that is against copyright law.

Jeff

On Apr 23, 6:34 pm, "Jeff" <n... (AT) googlemail (DOT) com> wrote:
Is this the same article - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/21/au...es/21auto.html
? I am not a lawyer, I don't play one on TV, and I didn't even stay at
a Holiday INn last night, but I think you can legally post portions of
the article as long as you properly attribute it.

Ed

"Ed White" <ce.white3 (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote

No, it was a different article from a few weeks ago.

Jeff