Toyota Kaikan factory tour: Fascinating look at cars being made in Japan

Frances Cha, CNN
6 minute read
Updated 9:40 PM EDT, Wed March 12, 2014
The Toyota Kaikan plant at the company's headquarters in Japan allows visitors to walk through welding and assembly areas where the world's best selling cars are made (although visitors aren't allowed to get this close).
Touring Toyota —
The Toyota Kaikan plant at the company's headquarters in Japan allows visitors to walk through welding and assembly areas where the world's best selling cars are made (although visitors aren't allowed to get this close).
courtesy Toyota
"Toyota became a corporate icon because it achieved and sustained record-setting operational performance measured in terms of productivity, product reliability, and time to market in an incredibly competitive industry," MIT professor Steven Spear tells CNN.
World champion —
"Toyota became a corporate icon because it achieved and sustained record-setting operational performance measured in terms of productivity, product reliability, and time to market in an incredibly competitive industry," MIT professor Steven Spear tells CNN.
courtesy Toyota
"Just In Time" pull systems allow workers to alert supervisors to any problems or possible delays.
Motomachi plant —
"Just In Time" pull systems allow workers to alert supervisors to any problems or possible delays.
courtesy Toyota
Inside Toyota, the Motomachi factory is referred to as "the mother plant." Engineers are sent from here to train workers in other company manufacturing bases in Japan, such as the Tsutsumi plant in this photo, and overseas.
Mama —
Inside Toyota, the Motomachi factory is referred to as "the mother plant." Engineers are sent from here to train workers in other company manufacturing bases in Japan, such as the Tsutsumi plant in this photo, and overseas.
courtesy Toyota
The plant produces 70,000 cars per year; that breaks down to one car completed every 135 seconds. More than 30,000 parts go into each car and 760 robots are used at the Motomachi facility. Countless emulators have tried to decipher the secrets of the Toyota system.
Stat line —
The plant produces 70,000 cars per year; that breaks down to one car completed every 135 seconds. More than 30,000 parts go into each car and 760 robots are used at the Motomachi facility. Countless emulators have tried to decipher the secrets of the Toyota system.
courtesy Toyota
You'd think one of the world's most efficient systems would have production lines dedicated to single models, but Toyota says it isn't so. The company mixes models on the line to keep workers engaged and alert.
Different models on the line —
You'd think one of the world's most efficient systems would have production lines dedicated to single models, but Toyota says it isn't so. The company mixes models on the line to keep workers engaged and alert.
courtesy Toyota
The factory tour starts at the Toyota Kaikan Museum, which displays latest models from Toyota and Lexus, Formula 1 cars, vehicles of the future and safety simulation games. Admission is free.
Kaikan Museum —
The factory tour starts at the Toyota Kaikan Museum, which displays latest models from Toyota and Lexus, Formula 1 cars, vehicles of the future and safety simulation games. Admission is free.
Soon Lee/CNN
Visitors stop in their tracks at the Kaikan Museum whenever this robot starts playing the trumpet. It produces its beautiful music via piston-powered lungs and rubber lips.
Soul music? —
Visitors stop in their tracks at the Kaikan Museum whenever this robot starts playing the trumpet. It produces its beautiful music via piston-powered lungs and rubber lips.
Soon Lee/CNN
"The capacity for deriving far more value from fewer resources in less time has caught the attention of managers in other sectors, not just automotive, since they are are also under pressure to do much more for their stakeholders while burning less time and other resources," says MIT professor Steven Spear of the Toyota Production System (TPS). The system is depicted here in miniature at the Kaikan Museum.
"We need to talk about your TPS reports." —
"The capacity for deriving far more value from fewer resources in less time has caught the attention of managers in other sectors, not just automotive, since they are are also under pressure to do much more for their stakeholders while burning less time and other resources," says MIT professor Steven Spear of the Toyota Production System (TPS). The system is depicted here in miniature at the Kaikan Museum.
Soon Lee/CNN
If Toyota's vision becomes reality, in a few years we may all be traveling in these vehicles.
Can't wait —
If Toyota's vision becomes reality, in a few years we may all be traveling in these vehicles.
Soon Lee/CNN
Because company-branded curry is obviously what you'd sell at the gift shop in a car factory.
Totally makes sense —
Because company-branded curry is obviously what you'd sell at the gift shop in a car factory.
Soon Lee/CNN
Toyota Kaikan: World's coolest factory tour?

Story highlights

The Toyota Production System is considered by many the best in the world

Visitors can tour Toyota's Motomachi Plant, internally known as "the mother plant"

At Motomachi, a car is completed every 135 seconds

CNN  — 

It’s like a scene out of “The Terminator.”

Rows upon rows of giant robot arms weave in and out of a tightly packed assembly line of unpainted car skeletons. There are no humans in sight – just huge machines working in jerks and spasms, but quickly, each massive arm doing something different.

Some spew sparks and fire, some brush, some drill. Others wipe or probe with their strangely shaped tips.

From a second floor glass bridge inside Toyota’s Motomachi plant, our tour group stares down at production lines on either side of us, noses pressed to the glass.

“Ninety-six percent of the production process is completed by robots,” says our guide, who may or may not be a robot herself, if her monotone delivery is a hint.

“Thirty workers take care of the robots. They have an average life of 10 to 12 years.” The robots, that is. This giant factory full of giant robots produces cars for the world’s best selling automaker – Toyota sold 9.98 million vehicles in 2013.

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‘We need to talk about your TPS reports’

Studied at universities and schools around the world, the Toyota Production System is considered by many to be the most well-run and efficient self-correcting production system in the world

Although Toyota has been remarkably transparent about its renowned system – opening its plants to anyone who wants to observe or study them – emulators (automotive and beyond) have struggled to match its remarkable success.

“Many companies have focused on tangible ‘artifacts’ of the Toyota approach,” says Steven Spear, senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and co-author of the Harvard Business Review article “Decod