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The Toyota Way to Continuous Safety

Oct. 29, 2014
The K-HYP system at Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing introduces safety into the quality conversation, where it belongs.

The Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing, Inc. plant in Columbus, Ind., is a busy, bustling place.

At full capacity, 1,300 workers are crowded into the million square-foot facility, navigating tight rows and busy cells, pumping out a new, custom-built Toyota lift truck every 3:40 on its main assembly line alone.

It's a safe plant, as you'd expect from anything in the Toyota family. But that's no easy task to achieve.

The narrow lanes of the facility are choked with crisscrossing lift trucks and automated guided vehicles loaded with engines and machine components, while 250 welders throw sparks into the atmosphere. Complicating the environment, among those 1,300 workers, TIEM has had 550 temporary employees pass through the facility already this year.

It's a situation rife for injury, rife for disaster. Yet it seems to consistently prevent most issues. In fact, safety there seems to actually be improving.

More surprising, that effort is maintained by an EHS team just five members strong, when fully staffed.

Read the complete article on EHS Today, a companion site of IndustryWeek and part of Penton's Manufacturing and Supply Chain Group.

About the Author

Travis M. Hessman | Editor-in-Chief

Travis Hessman is the editor-in-chief and senior content director for IndustryWeek and New Equipment Digest. He began his career as an intern at IndustryWeek in 2001 and later served as IW's technology and innovation editor. Today, he combines his experience as an educator, a writer, and a journalist to help address some of the most significant challenges in the manufacturing industry, with a particular focus on leadership, training, and the technologies of smart manufacturing.

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