Toyota's Second Home

Toyota has long championed the concept of manufacturing locally in foreign countries where it sells cars, and Australia was one of the first in which Toyota built cars outside of Japan.

Australia was certainly the first country to engage in large-scale Toyota production, and so was something of a trailblazer for the rest of the world. Australia consequently retains a special significance in the Toyota world.

The famed Toyota Production System (TPS) – which has since become a standard for not only the automotive industry, but many other manufacturing industries around the globe – has been applied and refined in Australia since the first Toyotas were assembled in Port Melbourne in 1963.

Australian manufacturing learned a great deal from this new alliance with Japan. Now it is not just Toyota Australia that employs TPS, but around 100 supplier companies that in turn manufacture high-quality components for other companies and industries.

Significant innovations such as Kanban (the just-in-time system) and Kaizan (continual improvement) have been embraced locally, and the Camry cars built at the Altona plant are ranked among the best in the world. The one millionth Australian-built Camry was produced in September 2004.

Toyota in turn learned much from Australia about producing vehicles in a different culture. It has embraced the broader concept of good corporate citizenship, working closely with the community through programs such as Toyota Community Spirit.

In the 42 years it has been active in Australia, Toyota has gone from a novelty to the country’s top-selling brand. It has built more than 2m vehicles and exports in record numbers. More than half the cars from the Altona production line go to foreign markets, mostly in the Middle East.

As well as investing A$1.6bn in Australia over the past decade, Toyota has generated considerable local employment and its exports help the country’s balance of payments to the tune of about A$1.4bn annually. Toyota’s involvement in Australia has been a model for foreign investment in a local market.