How Toyota uses automation to improve processes

Since its com­mence­ment in 1926, Toy­ota has expand­ed its busi­ness domains to include tex­tile machin­ery, auto­mo­biles, mate­r­i­al han­dling equip­ment, elec­tron­ics, and logis­tics solu­tions. To get there, Toy­ota adopt­ed the con­cept of ​“lean man­u­fac­tur­ing,” which empha­sizes increas­ing val­ue while decreas­ing waste. The cus­tomer deter­mines what is valu­able, while waste is defined as over­pro­duc­tion, wait­ing, defec­tive parts, etc. Toy­ota also strives to ensure their work­ers’ skills are not wast­ed, which would decrease their job sat­is­fac­tion and their moti­va­tion, and there­fore, their effi­cien­cy. Incor­po­rat­ing automa­tion has ensured that the amount of waste has decreased significantly.

Toy­ota has been devel­op­ing indus­tri­al robots since the 1970s and intro­duc­ing them into their man­u­fac­tur­ing sys­tems to improve qual­i­ty and reduce costs. Robots are pri­mar­i­ly used in their weld­ing, paint­ing, and assem­bly process­es. Toy­ota aims to com­bine indus­tri­al robot tech­nolo­gies with auto­mo­bile con­trol tech­nolo­gies and state-of-the-art IT technologies. 

Many of the auto­mat­ed prod­ucts Toy­ota devel­ops are not imme­di­ate­ly relat­ed to the auto­mo­tive indus­try. In 2007, Toy­ota announced their vision of Toy­ota Part­ner Robot series to help sup­port human life. The Care Assist robot and the Walk Assist Robot were devel­oped to aid in health­care, domes­tic duties, and per­son­al trans­port. By 2012, Toy­ota was at work on the Human Sup­port Robot to coex­ist with fam­i­lies to pro­vide sup­port and improve their qual­i­ty of life.

Of course, many of the auto­mat­ic tech­nolo­gies Toy­ota uses are relat­ed to auto­mo­biles. The Toy­ota Motor Man­u­fac­tur­ing plant brings togeth­er auto­mat­ic guid­ed tug­gers and auto­mat­ic guid­ed carts to extend their lean man­u­fac­tur­ing ide­al. This effi­cient sub-assem­bly pro­duc­tion sys­tem allows the auto­mat­ic vehi­cles to be direct­ed by a traf­fic con­trol sys­tem that mon­i­tors the loca­tion of all of the vehi­cles in real time. Once prod­ucts are deliv­ered to a drop-off loca­tion, the parts feed robot process­es in work­sta­tions. When they are fin­ished, a robot loads a flow rack which is picked up for an AGC to be deliv­ered to the next work­sta­tion to be installed into the body of a vehicle.

The Toy­ota Auto­mat­ed Guid­ed Con­tain­er Trans­port Sys­tem auto­mates trans­port work in stor­age yards and lever­ages the soft­ware tech­nol­o­gy to help opti­mize load­ing oper­a­tions. It helps reduce idle time of cranes and con­tain­er trail­ers, which increas­es productivity.

In 2013, Toy­ota devel­oped a next-gen­er­a­tion advanced dri­ving sup­port sys­tem enti­tled Auto­mat­ed High­way Dri­ving Assist. AHDA uses auto­mat­ed dri­ving tech­nolo­gies to sup­port safer high­way dri­ving by link­ing coop­er­a­tive-adap­tive cruise con­trol with lane trace control.

Robots​.com works with com­pa­nies like Toy­ota to pro­vide the most effi­cient indus­tri­al robots for the best automa­tion lines. If you are inter­est­ed in buy­ing an indus­tri­al robot, we car­ry a large vari­ety includ­ing Fanuc, KUKA, Motoman, Uni­ver­sal Robots, and ABB. Con­tact us today online or at 877−762−6881.