Lexus - Production - Assembly Plants

Assembly Plants

The first Lexus vehicles were manufactured in Toyota's flagship Tahara plant, a highly sophisticated, computerized manufacturing plant in Japan. Lexus production techniques include methods and standards of quality control that differ from Toyota models. At the Tahara plant, separate assembly lines were developed for Lexus vehicles, along with new molds and specialized manufacturing equipment. Welding processes, body panel fit tolerances, and paint quality requirements are more stringent. Lexus plant workers, typically veteran technicians, are identified via repeated performance evaluations and ranked according to skill grade, with limited applicants accepted. The highest level takumi (Japanese for "artisan") engineers are responsible for maintaining production standards at key points in the assembly process, such as testing engine performance. Production vehicles are given visual inspections for flaws, individually test-driven at high speeds, and subjected to vibration tests.

Through the 2000s, most Lexus sedan and SUV production has occurred in Japan at the Tahara plant in Aichi and Miyata plant in Fukuoka. In addition to the Tahara factory, Lexus vehicles have been produced at the Miyata plant (Toyota Motor Kyushu, Inc.) in Miyawaka, Fukuoka, Higashi Fuji plant (Kanto Auto Works, Ltd.) in Susono, Shizuoka, and Sanage plant (Toyota Boshoku Corp.; Araco) in Toyota City, Aichi. Front-wheel drive cars, such as the ES and HS, are produced in the Fukuoka Prefecture. The Kokura plant in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, which opened in 2008, is a dedicated hybrid production site for Lexus models such as the gasoline-electric RX. The North American–market RX 350 (since the 2004 model year) is produced at the Cambridge plant (Toyota Canada, Inc.) in the city of Cambridge, in Ontario, Canada, which is the first Lexus production site located outside of Japan. In 2005, J.D. Power and Associates bestowed its Platinum award for worldwide plant quality on the Tahara plant for the fourth consecutive year, stating that it has the fewest defects of any manufacturing plant in the world. In 2006, J.D. Power named the Miyata plant, then the site of ES and IS model production, as its recipient of the Platinum award for worldwide plant quality, and in 2009 the Higashi Fuji plant, site of SC production, received the same recognition.