Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

According to news from September 19, at Toyota plants in the industrial center of Japan, the company's engineers and technicians combine emerging car-building technologies such as automatic assembly lines and large-tonnage die-casting machines with old-fashioned thinking such as manual polishing and lean production methods, hoping to bridge the gap between themselves and other competitors in the field of pure electric vehicles.

Toyota, the world's largest carmaker by sales, firmly believes it can compete with carmakers such as Tesla by combining new technology with well-known lean production methods that have been used for decades to improve productivity and reduce costs.

Last week, Toyota showed off the latest developments in car-building technology for the first time during a factory visit in central Japan, many of them for the first time. In addition, Toyota has demonstrated some innovative ways to save costs, such as a technology that makes high-brightness bumpers without painting. The mold is manually polished to the mirror effect, making the bumper shiny.

In addition, Toyota has improved the equipment used to process parts 30 years ago, making it possible to run at night and on weekends through robots and 3D modeling automation. Toyota says these improvements have tripled the productivity of the equipment.

"Toyota's manufacturing strength lies in our ability to cope with the changes of the times," Toyota's chief production officer, Xinxiang and Huang, said while demonstrating the new process. " He says this is due to the engineering and technical expertise rooted in Toyota production system (TPS).

Toyota has revolutionized modern manufacturing with lean production, just-in-time delivery and "Kanban" workflow organization. These methods have been used in everything from hospitals to software companies, and have been widely studied in business schools and boards around the world.

Through continuous efforts to improve processes and reduce costs, Toyota rapidly emerged as a global giant after World War II. But in the field of battery electric vehicles, Tesla used his ultra-high efficiency to create market-leading profitability, which overshadowed Toyota.

Under the leadership of new chief executive Henoji Sato, Toyota announced an ambitious plan to boost electric cars in June, a major shift for the company. Although Toyota has launched the industry-leading hybrid Prius, it has been considered slow to adopt pure electric technology for years.

Toyota's share of the global electric vehicle market was only about 0.3% in 2022, according to a report by Goldman Sachs in June, which Goldman Sachs said was "missing" more powerful products from its product lineup.

Toyota is not the only car company facing the challenge of transforming electric vehicles. Detroit's big three automakers also cited Tesla's competitive pressure to oppose wage demands from the United Auto Workers (UAW), which led to an unprecedented joint strike last week.

An innovation highlighted by Toyota for automatic assembly lines and large tonnage die casting machines is the fully automated production line, where electric vehicles navigate automatically through sensors. This technology does not require conveyor belt equipment, eliminates one of the major expenses in the car assembly process, and provides greater production line flexibility.

In the demonstration, the electric car moves slowly without a roof so that the robot can insert parts. Robotic arms from Fanuc in Japan attach car seats to the floor of an electric car. On one side, an automatic forklift removes more seats from a container.

Toyota also showed a prototype of die-casting technology called gigacasting, which was pioneered by Tesla and can produce larger aluminum parts than previously used in car manufacturing.

Toyota said that, like Tesla, it would use modularization to produce electric cars to reduce the number of parts. But Toyota also points to its own innovation. Having been engaged in the die-casting process for many years, Toyota has developed moulds that can be changed quickly, and it is necessary to change the moulds regularly in the integrated casting process.

Toyota said this could reduce mold replacement time from the usual 24 hours to 20 minutes and is expected to increase productivity by 20 per cent.

Toyota has also introduced a self-driving transport robot at its Wonmachi plant in Toyota City, which can transport new cars in a 40,000-square-meter parking lot, a job previously done by drivers.

Truck drivers walk an average of 8 kilometers a day to pick up their cars, which not only takes up driving time, but also increases their physical burden, so the turnover rate of the industry is very high.

Toyota said it plans to use 10 robots at its Woncho plant by next year and will consider using them in other factories. Toyota can also sell these robots to other companies.

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