Toyota number in sales in the USA !!!

Guy next door works at Dana plant.....making axles for Ford. They got behind last year and ALL product had to be flown to factory. A 12 hour ride in a truck was going to take too long. Said they could never get caught up. They are now.

A better reason why Toyota is #1 may be the products they make. I drive a 2006 Tundra.....over 200,000 miles.....and has never been in the shop for an unscheduled repair. Things wear out and has to be replaced, but nothing has ever failed on it. Spousal unit's Camry....same. Nearly 10 year old, 100k, no repairs.

They just run and run and run.

BTW, vehicle of choice for middle east militaries......Toyota Hilux.

Not really an offshoot.  Demming's is a quality system, JIT/ Lean is a production management system.  While often used together, and similar vintage, one didn't spring form the other.  Demming gets credit for the SPC, Lean has it's roots by a Japanese engineer from Toyota.

The shipment arrived, 980 in routine packaging, 20 in a special shipment with the note, "We don't know why you want defective products, but here they are."

Personally, I just can't bring myself to support a foreign corporation, like Toyota, when there are American alternatives. Even though I know every company uses foreign sourced parts, I prefer to support USA owned corporations, when possible.

As long as people have that mindset, we will continue to lose money to foreign companies and countries.

Toyota developed their "Toyota Way" based on observations of US mass production. There is no coincidence that Kiichiro Toyoda's first automobiles and trucks resembled American cars, and that his production  lines did, too-  he studied US and European mass-production to find ways to improve his textile loom manufacturing.  He read Taylor's articles on scientific management methods, and personally went to meet Henry Ford to see how those famous 'assembly lines' worked.

(For what it's worth, Henry Ford HATED electricity... he had a steam engine and water-wheel, didn't think he needed anything else, until his OWN engineers illustrated how going to ELECTRICALLY-DRIVEN machines would allow placement to radically improve part workflow through manufacturing.  Once they proved to him how much THAT ability improved HIS ORIGINAL assembly-line, he had ALL his plants converted from lineshaft to electrically-driven machines.)

Toyoda (who named his company ToyoTa because the Kanji symbol used, was a much better 'fit') saw how much METHOD and PROCESS determined production efficiency, and thus, concentrated on making production under practical scientific method (or as WE call it now, "Statistical Process Control"), his primary focus.  As a result, we have LEAN, 6-Sigma, 5-Why.  We use terms like Mura, Muda, and Muri... and we have what WE call 'Just In Time'.  Finally, we have "PULL" rather than "PUSH".  Push, is when someone dicatates how many of an item are produced.  "Pull" is when market demands  production.  Regardless of which philosophy is used, to work properly, the ENTIRE SYSTEM must work the 'same way'... i.e., if a 'push' system dicatates that 400 chains of a given size and type will be made, then X number of pins, plates, and spacers will be manufactured and sent off for assembly into chains... and then the chains will be sent off to market to be offered for sale.  In a 'pull' system, one chain will be made, and when a chain is ordered, the pins for one chain are ordered, the plates for one chain are ordered, and the spacers are ordered.  The chain is assembled, and sent out to the buyer.  The actual result (the customer having a chain) is the same, but the process by which the purchasing and producton occur, is entirely reversed, so that there is no excess of parts sitting around.  Reason for that choice, is because sitting parts constitute substantial fiscal and operational losses when space and money are tight.

Visit a big company, take a walk out into a storage yard or warehouse and see 5-year-old 'dead stock'... that's money that was spent, not only to obtain, but also handle something that was never used.  In the meantime, it was also space taken up, with same loss... and this is why "JIT" is so relied-upon now.

To understand how parts supply works in Japanese production business, one must understand the concept of 'Keiretsu', where companies buy large quantities of stock in their suppliers, and suppliers, in turn, buy stock in their clients.

It would be like... the Hydramatic Division being owned 35% by GM, and 10% of GM being owned by the Hydramatic Division.  Or Cummins being 20% owned by Dodge, and Cummins holding 10% of Dodge's stock.

FWIW... my Camry was manufactured in Georgetown, Ky.  It was a plant Toyota built, after dispensing with the NUMMI plant (a joint-venture with GM) in California.  Georgetown cars are built by US citizens, on US soil, just like my Honda Goldwing was built in Marysville, Ohio.  My Camry hasn't had but one major problem... The A541E... a failing OD/Reverse planetary... which was costly, but a solid 'fix' with transmission removal/rebuild/replacement.

51% of Asin-Warner was owned by Toyota... 42% by Asin AW... and they manufacture transmissions for over 16% of the WORLD's automotive manufacture (more than GM Powertrain Division).

My 1999 Chevy pickup's 4L60E had basically same failure five years ago... fractured ring gear in the OD/reverse planetary... so there's clearly no 'superiority' in either category.