Joann Muller
Forbes Staff
It’s been more than a year since Toyota announced it would move its North American headquarters from Torrance, Calif., to Plano, Texas, yet very little seems to be happening on that front (other than a lot of hand-wringing by unhappy employees still waiting to learn the fate of their jobs).
But in Michigan, where Toyota has its North American research and development center, there are signs of growth. On Thursday, Toyota broke ground on a $126 million expansion of its Toyota Technical Center, which includes construction of two new buildings in York
“The expansion of this campus is a key element of Toyota’s ongoing unification of our North American operations, which includes a new headquarters in Plano, Texas,” said Toyota North America CEO Jim Lentz in remarks during the groundbreaking ceremony. “Investments here in Michigan will intensify Toyota’s engineering, product development and procurement capabilities. The impact of this will be felt by our customers through improved quality, adoption of new technologies and greater value of the vehicles we produce.”
As part of the expansion, Toyota is relocating more than 300 employees to Michigan, from Kentucky and California. The company said these moves will help Toyota’s North American leadership team make faster, better decisions that suit the needs of this market. Toyota blamed a 2010-2011 recall crisis on a Japanese-centric management team that was stretched too thin and failed to respond quickly to safety and quality issues in North America.
Toyota’s new Supplier Center will enable better collaboration between engineers, purchasing executives and suppliers.
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