Toyota Plant Visit - Tuesday July 1st - 12:30pm

Evan Bottcher · June 03, 2014, 07:16:17 PM

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.

Evan Bottcher · June 06, 2014, 02:21:38 PM

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.

Evan Bottcher · June 07, 2014, 01:01:33 PM

BUMP. Down to FIVE positions.

cheers,
Evan.

colcol · June 07, 2014, 06:25:46 PM

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.

Evan Bottcher · June 07, 2014, 10:27:57 PM

THREE positions left.

Luna Rossa · 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.

Evan Bottcher · June 10, 2014, 07:37:32 PM

Cool story

Still THREE positions left!

AndrewR · June 14, 2014, 09:37:04 PM

I would be interested with a friend if any positions left.

Evan Bottcher · June 14, 2014, 11:08:33 PM

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...

AndrewR · June 15, 2014, 11:41:53 AM

If only one spot becomes open, what friend!

Evan Bottcher · June 26, 2014, 11:00:48 PM

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.

Evan Bottcher · June 27, 2014, 08:58:58 AM

The tour is full up again - thanks for the replies.

pep105 · June 27, 2014, 11:19:48 PM

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.

colcol · July 01, 2014, 05:36:00 PM

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.

aggie57 · July 01, 2014, 05:42:08 PM

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.