Honda Auto Plants: On Track for the Future

As classmate Ching's previous entry about Chrysler attests to, auto makers are attempting to make serious adjustments to meet changing demands, especially with respect to volatility in gasoline cost and supply. As another example, the 09/24/08 Wall Street Journal article below explains technological innovation at the manufacturing level, specifically at Honda plants in the U.S.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122211673953564349.html

Ever since the post-WWII period, Japan's leading automakers have catapulted innovation in manufacturing, such as with the "Just In Time" concept, along with other applications now standard in the industry. That sense of foresight continues today.

The WSJ article explains some of Honda's most recent cost-saving, production-accelerated innovations on their U.S. assembly lines. Such critical innovations include:

- Re-tooling some of its plants to enable the assembly of multiple Honda car models in the same way, even though their individual parts may vary.
- The use of interchangeable "gray robots," which resemble hands designed to handle assembly parts with precision and speed during the welding process. "Workers simply put different 'hands' on the robots to handle the parts for different vehicles."

These are considered unprecedented innovations. By comparison, a conventional auto manufacturing plant tends to be tooled to produce only one or a very limited number of models. If such a plant needs to produce a different model to fill a sudden spike or change in customer demand -- such as a compact model versus a gas-guzzling SUV -- the assembly overhaul required is vastly slower and far more costly and laborious than with Honda's assembly method. As the article states, Honda's rapid-response time to fluctuations in the market affords them tremendous flexibility and a "key strategic advantage" ahead of their North American competitors in this regard.

- Misako M.