Construction Begins on Toyota's Largest U.S. Parts Facility

Tokyo―TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION announced today that Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. (TMS), the company's U.S. sales arm, held a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a new $75 million parts center in Ontario, California. When completed in 1996, Toyota's 760,000ft² Ontario facility will be the company's largest parts procurement and distribution center in the United States, and will employ approximately 400 people.

The new project represents another major step in the "Americanization" of Toyota's U.S. operations. According to TMS Vice President and General Manager Bob Bennett of the company's North American Parts and Logistics Division, when construction, hiring, and training are completed at the Ontario Parts Center in the fall of 1996, "Toyota Motor Corporation will transfer service parts supply responsibility for all of North America from Japan to the U.S."

The new operation will then supply service and replacement parts to all of Toyota's North American distributors, which includes the United States, Canada, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam as well as American Samoa and Saipan. The new facility will also supply Toyota's 11 U.S. parts distribution centers, Toyota's 1,400 U.S. Toyota, Lexus, and forklift dealers, Toyota's North American plants, and plants of General Motors in the U.S.

The Ontario Parts Center will also help Toyota increase parts and materials purchases from U.S. suppliers. And because of Toyota's increasing exports of U.S.―built vehicles, the new facility will also be exporting North American parts to Toyota Parts Centers in Japan and Europe.

The facility will have an inventory of over 190,000 different parts, and, by making use of Toyota's Just-in-Time delivery system, will process some 32,000 line item orders per day. Every thirty seconds of every working day, one pallet of auto parts will be received and shipped from the center.