Drove past a nearby Ford dealer over the weekend and noticed how empty their lot was. Just now looked at their website and it lists (81) 'new' Ford vehicles available, which can't be accurate. Make sure it's not listing vehicles on other lots owned by the same dealer network and see "This vehicle is in transit" graphics under 3/4 of the vehicles. They also show 51 SUVs, 29 trucks, and 1 "coupe". I know Ford was getting out of the "car" business and moving to trucks and SUVs, but dang....
Glad I don't sell cars
- Thread starter walterjay
- Start date
I believe Toyota has better relationships with their suppliers. They take a longer term approach. So they didn't just stop their orders when it was believed the sales would slow. They kept ordering, perhaps at lower numbers, but enough to keep the supplier engaged.
The earthquake in Japan some years ago had Toyota looking at their JIT supply chain for weaknesses.
Toyota may not make the best cars, but they seem to have a more long term mindset compared to other automakers.
I found this article after I wrote, so let's see if what I believe I "knew" before holds true: https://fortune.com/2021/08/02/toyota-cars-chip-shortage-semiconductors/
Probably a Mustang.
At my work we are getting Ford F-250 diesel trucks, Toyota Corollas, and some Chevy Equinox’s in along with Infinity QX 80 SUVS
Decades ago in Popular Science the practice of "kamban" (if I remember correctly) was heralded.
It's a Japanese term for the practice of having only the parts the assembly lines need at a given time on hand.
Too bad interruptions in supply weren't considered.
It's a Japanese term for the practice of having only the parts the assembly lines need at a given time on hand.
Too bad interruptions in supply weren't considered.
Statistically speaking, it works better so they continue to operate this way.
Many years ago, I used to go to a "seat" factory that made the seats for the Honda assembly plant an hour away. That facility rec'd their work orders from the Honda plant telling them what to produce and those seats went into vehicles within 1-2 shifts. For example, they'd produce seats from 6-10 am and they were in an assembled vehicle during Honda's 2nd shift production. Neither company had to "waste" money, resources, etc on warehouse space. The semi-trailers were their really, short-term warehouses.
Go back to carburetors
Or way back, the horse and buggy. Or the ancient ways, your two feet.
Kanban refers to specialized containers that are right sized and fool proof to load.
Think of an egg carton; it holds 12 eggs. So you don't have to count; you just fill up the container.
These right sized containers were brought to the mfg line. Of course, not all parts are delivered via kanban.
A real kanban benefit is an easy visual inventory quantity check vs counting. It is easy to make a counting mistake.
Specialized packaging is hardly a new concept.
The term kanban has evolved into kanban boards (inventory control) and even to software development team "Scrum" project methodology. But they all refer back to the easy, visual way to communicate and optimize.
Interruptions is supply are a different matter. MRP calculations include safety stock for outages.
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My brother in law sells new GMC and Chevrolet vehicles. Just had the largest commission check he has ever seen in 20 years. Sells everything before it hits the ground at or close to MSRP. He is making 800-1200 a car now instead of 200-300 a car with rebates and negotiations. sold 23 cars last month himself at a small rural dealership.
How are you going to test it and install it after it is already at the customers? What you are doing is basically a reflow repair and it will have way higher cost in assembly, shipping, testing, and yield hit. They would rather you sell the car and buy another one, or just lease for a few years and put up with it now.
Typical Japanese business value more on "relationship" than "what can you do for me" attitude in the US. Once upon a time when Toshiba was hit with financial issue and need to offload their chips, their good buddy Kingston's owners somehow end up buying almost 1B worth of chips and helped them out big time, and somehow find ways to make use and sell them all over time.
Then during the boom time when everyone in the industry has chip shortage, somehow Kingston got all the chips they needed mysteriously after a phone call between its owners and their buddy in Toshiba.
JIT is not going to work if you are trying to screw your vendor into bankruptcy and then go back to beg them for forgiveness a few months later.
I must be missing the doom and gloom. We got 18 new Silverado’s today. 11 GMC “DENALI” Yukon’s, and 8 Chevy Equinox. And 18 Toyota Camrys 
similar thing here, but not that critical.
cheaper cars are gone, only few expensive models are on sale.
cheaper cars are gone, only few expensive models are on sale.
