Toyota Drives for Continuous Improvement

Kaizen : The Japanese term for improvement; continuing improvement involving everyone: managers and workers. In manufacturing, kaizen relates to finding and eliminating waste in machinery, labour, or production methods.

“Kaizen” is a term that Toyota takes to heart. They are continually striving to find new and better ways to improve their Environmental Management System, which includes defining Key Performance Indicators, and a stringent auditing process. ISO 14001 has been chosen as the minimum standard to which they aspire at their Canadian facilities.

Toyota has defined four key areas of waste management – waste, air, water and energy - and are making changes to all their processes in an effort to reduce their impacts in these areas. For example, the Canadian manufacturing plants divert more than 97% of materials that would otherwise be landfilled (140,000 kgs in the Cambridge plant alone). Paint waste is used in the manufacture of plastic highway guardrail insulators and parking lot blocks. The manufacturing plant in Cambridge, ON, has installed a water recycling system that cleans the water and allows it to be reused, reducing consumption by 14% in 2003. The same plant also installed waterless urinals, reducing water consumption by a whopping 51,000 litres per month.

The Cambridge plant monitors the number of volatile organic compounds used daily, and corrects any problems. This has resulted in a 48% reduction of emissions since 1997. They also monitor energy use, and have reduced consumption 31% since 1997. The Delta, BC, wheel manufacturing plant added a new aluminum chip-melting process that reduces nitrous oxide emissions, and uses only half the natural gas as the previous system. Because the melting used to happen off-site, emissions were also created by transportation. The new system has led to a reduction in air emissions of 3.2 tonnes per year.

Environmental consciousness has led Toyota to being a pioneer in the development of gas–electric hybrid technology, with the introduction of the Prius in 1997. Since then, it has been completely redesigned (from a compact to a mid-size in 2004), with no change in price. They recognize that people are looking for environmentally friendly cars, but don’t want to be “penalized”, in the sense of having to pay more, nor do they want to sacrifice power and performance. “The 2004 Prius compares favourably with the average price for all mid-sized vehicles sold in Canada in 2002. The technology advancements (Toyota has) made have resulted in hybrid vehicles being less expensive to build, even as they get better.”

Both internally, and through partnerships with both suppliers and competitors, Toyota is making changes for the better.

For more information, see www.toyota.ca— click on Environment.

DRIVING A PRIUS...

• from California to Florida – approximately 2,700 miles – produces fewer smog-forming emissions than emptying just one can of air freshener.
• for 8,000 miles – creates fewer emissions than spilling a cup of gasoline.
• for 53,000 miles – the equivalent of twice around the world - generates fewer emissions than painting a bedroom

(Source: Sept. 2006 WasteWatch)

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