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| Test modelling a Toyota convertible |
Declan's let me take part in the Toyota factory tour this day (though I do have to make it up) with one of my ex-classmates who had just finished his courses. Heading north towards Toyota (the city), we first stopped at a former samurai barracks area called the Okutono Jinya (or manor house). It belonged to the Matsudaira family into which Tokugawa Ieyasu was actually born into before living most of his developing years as a hostage elsewhere.
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| Gate to Okutono Jinya | Okutono Jinya |
I was told the grounds have been restored and well kept. It made for a pleasant morning stroll around a few small buildings and the Japanese garden in the back. In one shed was a display of fireworks which, Declan explained, are also manufactured in the area. Actually, the region manufactures about 80% of all fireworks in the country. Part of the matter was that gunpowder manufacturing was heavily controlled by the Big Three Shoguns (Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu). Inside the main house, we had some tea, which was welcome because it was freezing inside, and admired the displays close by.
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| Old-fashioned Hanabi (Fireworks) | Large scale Hanabi, old and new | Tea at Okutono Jinya |
Once we left the Jinya, we passed one very impressive piece of road construction en route to Toyota. The new connection between Tokyo and Toyota to connect with the Tomei Expressway included a pair of massive structures from which a suspension bridge is being built. The height of the cranes for the project alone was impressive.
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| Toyota Stadium |
The Toyota Stadium, which we also passed on the way, was also impressive but is essentially a massive white elephant. It was built for the 2002 World Cup but didn't host any games. It apparently doesn't get used very much.
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| Showroom in Toyota Kaikan Exhibition Hall |
Toyota's operations are quite spread out in the town which meant parking at their headquarters where the museums are and working from there. After browsing around the new car showroom waiting for our reserved tour time, we were taken in one of Toyota's vehicles for a 10 minute ride to the Tsutsumi manufacturing plant. While the one-hour tour was open to the public (through reservations) and was free, we weren't allowed to take any pictures while inside the complex.
While I had some familiarity with Toyota through my work at the port back home, this was the first time I had seen an assembly plant of this scale in action. We were told that the automobile assembly at Toyota had four stages - body stamping, welding, painting, and assembly. We were being given a walk through of the assembly operation. I had some ideas beforehand about what to expect. Some were not met, eg. seeing robotics in action, but there were those that were exceeded. I was surprised to see that the plant was actually operating only one assembly line from start to finish, working on different models, colours, and custom orders all in one sequential order, instead of in a few separate ones, say, for each car model. It must take a lot of computer-controlled coordination to make sure the right part meets the right vehicle at the right place and time to be installed according to order. Obviously it works well - the plant assembles 1,800 new vehicles a day.
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| Toyota Prius hybrid car |
It was also more labour intensive than I expected. We were told that Toyota employs 66,000 though I didn't catch how many were working at this particular plant (1,200?). On the positive side, the company has been resisting laying off workers. For example those whose jobs are being made obsolete by automation, by moving them to the testing area of the assembly line (there seemed to be quite a few workers doing the testing). On the other hand, Declan explained after the tour that the company partly manages this by downloading some of the cost-cutting pressure onto its contractors.
In a operation as complex as this, it's still the small details that make a difference. The tour guide pointed out the mobile assembly cart moving in tandem with the unit being built while it is in that section. The cart was an idea of an employee and was given a bonus for it. We were told that employees gave about 650,000 suggestions last year. Overall, it was a very impressive operation and while I wish I was able to see more of it. There was also a small grey box on top of each unit that communicated information as it moved down the assembly line.
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| Toyota Crayon electric car |
Gotta admire the attitude here as well, even more than all those employee-submitted suggestions. A slogan was posted throughout the manufacturing plant - "Good Thinking, Good Products" - that partly seemed to be a bit of lip service but while we were having lunch back in the main building, our tour guide showed up with a higher official. Our tour was supposed to have two more people who were late and telephoned that they were one their way by taxi. Our tour guide had us wait in the tour vehicle before deciding to move on about twenty minutes later. She apparently reported this to this official, interestingly a gaikoku-jin, who apologized for the delay and presented to each of us a small gift as a token of appreciation for our patience. It made for an interesting lunch between the Billy Joel Greatest Hits album songs being played and the firefighting demonstration going on outside.
With tour and lunch over, we had more time to walk through the museum in the main building. With the World Expo in Aichi in 2005, Toyota is a major sponsor and will have a pavillion there and since the expo has an environmental theme, it was a prominent and current feature in the museum. I like how the company has a goal of reusing or recycling 95% of its waste by 2005. I'm also glad to see that more environmentally friendly cars are making good progress in Japan, much more than in North America, unfortunately. Toyota's hybrid model, the Prius, is the top selling model of its kind in Japan right now. It gets 35.5 km per liter. They also had a purely electric model, the Crayon, that is not available to the public because of the need to provide a power network on the road for these cars.
What also bugs me is that Toyota offers many more models in Japan, over sixty, in many shapes and sizes to suit a number of purposes. I think that we need more smaller vehicles back home, especially for those who commute long distances to work. Compared to what I've seen in Japan, the cars back home are way too big.
Still, this was a car museum and there was all sorts of interesting displays and presentation about the Toyota cars. My ex-classmate on the tour, an American, took a virtual-reality drive in a simulater set ironically in San Francisco. There were also new high-tech features on display including side air bags, improved GPS navigators and an upcoming self-parking system soon to be available in Japan. Don't know if and when it'll be available in North America.
There was also a presentation on the other sections of the vehicle assembly process we weren't able to see. The body part stamping machine was especially impressive. One massive unit capable of stamping out of sheet metal all of the 400 some-odd body parts for all of Toyota's vehicles.
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| Seven generations of Matsudaira tombstones |
After spending almost four hours in the modern industrial atmosphere in Toyota, we went in the opposite direction, driving back to Okazaki to visit the Daijuji Temple in the northern part of the city. It's a pretty old temple that, among other artifacts, houses the mortuary tablets of the Tokugawa shoguns. It also has a wooden statue of Tokugawa Ieyasu that is significant because it was apparently carved in front of him, making it possibly the only three-dimensional likeness of him in existence. The temple's position of the temple and its gate was designed so that Okazaki Castle was always within its sights. The city has a policy that respects that sightline, ensuring that nothing gets built in between that could obstruct that view. The Daijuji grounds also have a fairly large cemetary (by Japanese standards) that includes the tombs of seven generations of the head of the Matsudaira family. It's interesting to look at the evolution of the tombstone from generation to generation (right to left on the photo).
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| Daijuji Temple | Belfry at Daijuji Temple | Display at Daijuji Temple |
We went back to the school to pick up one more, a German, and drive up to Nagano to start the next stage of the Discovery Tour early on Saturday. Fortunately, the conditions were favourable so the drive took four hours with one rest stop for a quick dinner on the way. Only a week after the Oshougatsu holidays and I'm already travelling again. I certainly do make the most of my time away from home but then again, I'm not the one doing the driving on this trip. While Declan's apparently had no problem doing all the driving on these tours, I'm still carrying my International Driver's Permit just in case he needs a break. He is understandably reluctant to let me drive in the winter conditions, especially since I have no experience driving on the left side of the road.