Hi folks,
I have EIGHT THREE positions free for a tour of the Toyota manufacturing plant in Altona. This tour will take place on Tuesday July 1st at 12:30pm.
Approximately 3kms walking and up to 2 hours. There is no cost involved. Long legged trousers and flat soled shoes are required - I will forward the full tour requirements and safety notes to those who are coming.
A brief description of the visit:
Press (where are panels are pressed)
Weld (where we robotically/manually weld the panels together to give the body shell)
Paint Shop Foyer (explains the paint process of the car)
Assembly (where we assembly parts to the car)
Please advise by PM or email (use the links to my left) if you can definitely attend. I'll take the bookings in order of email received.
Please double check the date and time - this is during business hours on a Tuesday.
cheers,
Evan.
Bumpity. There are still SIX positions free for the Toyota plant visit on July 1st. I can keep this open until the end of Wednesday next week (11th June) until I have to confirm final numbers with Toyota.
BUMP. Down to FIVE positions.
cheers,
Evan.
Hurry up and put your name down, most likely the last chance to ever see a car being built in Australia, when the roller door comes down on car assembly in 3 years time, Colin.
THREE positions left. 8)
I'm guessing the visitors will not be allowed to take photos inside the plant during the tour?
I did some work on the new press plant at Ford Geelong a few years back and had to leave my camera at the gatehouse, despite me needing to take photos for the job I was doing.
Cool story 8)
Still THREE positions left!
I would be interested with a friend if any positions left.
I'm sorry - all positions are now filled as of club night last Wednesday.
AndrewR - I'll start a waiting list and give you a holler if someone can't make it...
If only one spot becomes open, what friend!
Two spots have become vacant...
AndrewR has first 'dibs' on one of those if he can still make it, but if anyone else would like to go let me know.
The tour is full up again - thanks for the replies.
Quote from: Luna Rossa on June 10, 2014, 06:33:22 PM
I'm guessing the visitors will not be allowed to take photos inside the plant during the tour?
I did some work on the new press plant at Ford Geelong a few years back and had to leave my camera at the gatehouse, despite me needing to take photos for the job I was doing.
Yes that's correct photos will not be allowed. Typically if photos need to be taken an authorised photographer is assigned for work related purposes.
You guys will enjoy it, quite an experience as you'll see first hand the Toyota Production System in action. A process which is utilised by many other companies in manufacturing. If I happen to be in Altona on Tuesday ill let you know Evan.
Thanks Evan for organising the plant visit at Altona today at Toyota, we had a good turnout of Alfa Club Members for the tour, about 25?
I have worked in the Auto Industry for 40 years and was interested to see how Toyota did things, pretty good as it turns out, in the press shop, it takes Toyota 5 minutes to change the stamping body dies, where i did my training, it used to take 2 hours of hard dangerous work.
And the steel for the press shop is pre cut to shape, in the olden days, the steel was trimmed to shape in the press, resulting in a large amount of reclaimable waste, and there used to be humans loading and unloading the blank steel and loading the steel panels, this is all done by robots, then these like electric golf carts come and pick the panels up and take them to be flanged together and welded, before going onto the car.
Every thing that goes onto the cars being built, comes straight from the supplier and sits there waiting to be put in the correct car, to suit the model and trim levels.
The models they build at Altona is Camry 4 cylinder, Camry 4 cylinder/Hybrid and Aurion 6 cylinder, 70% are exported to the Middle East, you see left hand drive and right hand drive coming down the same line in no particular order, there will be a Australian Camry then one for the Middle East.
There is no we paint white today and blue tommorow, they paint one car a particular colour and then change 'pots' on the spray guns for different paint, we were told about this, but didn't see it due to concerns about the painting area becoming contaminated with fluff or bits of hair that would mar the finish, they use a water based paint, for enviromental reasons.
The cars are painted, then the doors are removed, and trim is added to the doors and cars, the doors are out of the way, so maximum access is available to add all the interior trim, then when the inside is done the doors that were painted with the car are put back on.
The V-6 engines for the Aurion come from Japan, the 4 cylinders are built in the powertrain plant at Altona, and we were told how the different cating methods are used for the different engine parts, such as casting in a die gives a nice smooth accurate finish, but is unable to cast complex shapes as aluminium engine blocks that require water jackets that run through the block, thease are sand cast, using a resin sand, that puts in the shape of the water jackets.
There was also an aluminium cam cover that someone remarked, looked like one off a classic Alfa Romeo twin cam engine, certainly looked a bit like a 156 twin spark as well.
There are 2 shifts working at the Altona plant with about 450?? staff, with an average age of 44, being working there for an average of 13 years, the gender ratio was 9 males to one female, they build a car about every 2 minutes.
In the Alfa Romeo Owners Club we are really lucky to be able to see this type of thing, thank you to all the various members that make these event happen, Colin.
Thanks Evan for organising a great outing. As Colin said its a really interesting plant, very modern and similar to what you see to plants shown on the tellie like BMW, Porsche, Chev and so on. Just sad that all the local experience and knowledge will soon be lost.
Tours can be organised for smaller groups by phoning them ahead - they do tours every Tuesday and Thursday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon each day. So if you missed out give them a call.
Evan, thanks man ... that was a very interesting day.
Spent a very enjoyable few hours at the Toyota factory, Colin said it all. Its a pity when we have a export quality facility that it will not be around in three years time, all that talent and expertise GONE!.
This may explain
Record loss for Toyota in
Australia with decision to
shut down plants in 2017
TOYOTA Australia's decision to
close its manufacturing operations in
2017 has had a massive impact on the
company's financial results, with the
car-maker posting a $437 million loss
for the past Japanese fiscal year.
The Japanese auto giant's Australian
subsidiary revealed last week that its
restructuring costs totalled $889 million,
which included $505 million in asset
write-downs and $384 million
for employee redundancies.
Without including the costs
associated with the wind-down
of production at its factory
at Altona, Melbourne, the
company turned a before-tax
profit of $266 million, which
Toyota attributes to exceeding
its cost reduction targets for a second
straight year and strong new-vehicle
sales.
Total revenue for the period April 1,
2013, to March 31, 2014, was down
$500 million to $8.4 billion.
Toyota announced in February
this year that it would pull out of
manufacturing cars in Australia in 2017,
leaving 2500 plant workers out of a job
and effectively bringing down the local
automotive manufacturing industry
following similar announcements from
Ford and Holden last year.
Toyota Australia president Dave
Buttner said that despite positive gains
in some areas of the business,
the decision to withdraw from
Australia dealt a heavy blow to
the company's results.
"Our employees worked
incredibly hard to secure the
investment for the new-look
Camry, which will be built in
our Altona plant from early next
year," he said.
"We also exceeded our cost reduction
targets for the second year in a row,
which was the result of a company-wide
transformation activity to strengthen
our business."
Thanks for organising a very interesting afternoon Evan. I was particularly impressed with how clean the entire factory is kept. I didn't see a single thing that looked out of place, and amazed by the special air-lock passage into the painting area, seemed like something from a space station!
Thanks from me as well. It was a fascinating couple of hours. Well worth taking some time off work for!
We weren't allowed to take photos or video inside the plant, but this is someone else's video of the body welding line - fully automated with a line of robot welding machines. Although this was probably the most mesmerising sight, the rest of the plant was equally interesting. Watching an engine installed in less than 1m30s was fantastic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82w_r2D1Ooo
Forgot to post this - for anyone who missed out on the excellent tour of the Toyota manufacturing plant, you can book yourself in by emailing planttours@toyota.com.au. The tour is available to anyone, is free of charge, and I was told it's not hard to fit in individuals or small groups.
Highly recommended - I found it absolutely fascinating, and soon it will all be gone.