Hino Has Large Land Parcel For Arkansas Assembly Plant
By NORIHIKO SHIROUZU
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 8, 2006 2:23 p.m.; Page B3
MARION, Ark. -- Toyota Motor Corp. truck affiliate Hino Motors Ltd., preparing to produce medium-duty trucks here as early as 2007, has already set aside a big enough section of the large parcel of land it owns here in order to build a full-fledged truck assembly plant.
Makoto Arakawa, the Hino plant manager in Marion, Ark., insisted "nothing has been finalized" about when Hino is going to start producing medium-duty trucks in Marion, a town near Memphis, Tenn. But individuals who are familiar with Hino's plans who spoke on condition of anonymity said the plan for producing medium-duty trucks in Arkansas has gained momentum since late last year.
Mr. Arakawa said the existence of a parcel of the Marion site reserved for an expansion to build a truck assembly plant doesn't mean it's imminent Hino is going to begin setting up a big truck plant here right from the start. The company, he said, is likely to start small and gradually build up production capacity.
Indeed, Hino is busy gearing to start full production of rear and front axles for Toyota's redesigned Tundra pickup trucks which the Japanese car giant expects to begin producing in San Antonio, Texas, in the fall of 2006.
Mr. Arakawa and other executives here noted that Hino had always, right from the start, believed it warranted setting up a full-fledged truck assembly plant once sales in the U.S. climb to 10,000 trucks a year – a threshold the company is likely to achieve in 2007.
Already, Hino's only factory in the U.S., a so-called knock-down plant in Long Beach, Calif., where the company has been producing since 2004 finished trucks with half-assembled parts modules brought in from Japan, is hitting its manufacturing capacity and is producing at a pace of about 6,400 trucks a year.
While the Long Beach, Calif., plant's capacity may be stretched a bit more, Hino is coming to a juncture where it has to figure out a way to expand its production capacity in the U.S.
Late last year, Hino Chairman Tadaaki Jagawa, a former Toyota executive vice president, said the Tokyo-based truck maker will likely set up a second U.S. assembly plant in Marion as early as in 2007 to build 3,000 to 4,000 trucks a year with an eye toward expanding the plant further, adding momentum to the Toyota group's expansion in the U.S.
In addition to its planned expansion in Arkansas, Hino is expected to open a small plant in or near Woodstock, Ontario, later this year in an effort to build about 2,000 trucks a year, some of which may be brought into the U.S. for sale.
The new truck assembly plant in Arkansas will add employment to Hino's existing operations in Marion.
A Hino executive in Farmington Hills, Mich., where its sales unit is headquartered said Hino's Tundra axle plant will likely start production with 300 workers next year, but that the number should rise to nearly 500 in five years' time thanks to Toyota's bullish sales outlook for the new Tundra truck. |
