A trip to TOYOTA

Then on November 8^th, Daddy took me and mommy to his work place, TOYOTA. We went to the Toyota Motor Manufacturing Inc. It is Toyota’s first wholly owned manufacturing facility in the United States. Since 1988, Toyota's Kentucky team has been building quality vehicles in the Bluegrass state. Today, "TMMK" is the largest Toyota plant outside of Japan. Each year in Georgetown, nearly 7,000 team members build about 500,000 vehicles and engines. Toyota's largest manufacturing facility in North America. That's about 2,000 vehicles every day!! 

We saw firsthand the beginnings of a global automaker, experience archival footage. Toyota, Kentucky the began in 1988. All the developments from then till this year were put up on a board. We also were allowed to climb inside the TMMK's vehicles on display. Then they showed us a video clip about Toyota plant- how it began. After that they gave us each a head set and the tour guide had a mike set to explain us everything going on within the plant as we were taken through. The TMMK manufactures the Camry, Avalon and Venza vehicles.

The tour guides led us through the portions of our 7.5 million square foot facility via an electric tram. The tour began in Stamping where we saw cars take shape from huge coils of rolled up steel. Then they moved to Body Weld where these stamped pieces are put together. There was a team of computer-controlled robots performing the welds that resulted in a completed body shell. That was amazing!! They were moving on their own from one place to another. Looking up we saw overhead conveyors transport the cars from Paint, to the Final Line in Assembly. Camry, Avalon and Venza vehicles moved along the assembly line in the order of purchase by retailers and customers. There were different colors of the cars lined up in a mixed order (order of purchase) and so based on that order the various parts of the cars were lined up and brought to the different stations to be fixed and assembled. This tram driven tour took approximately an hour and a half.  They didn’t allow us to carry cameras or take photos for security reasons.