The commencement of exports of the Corolla sedan to European and African destinations marks the culmination of a five-year, multi-billion rand plant modernisation and revitalisation programme for Toyota South Africa. In this process the production capacity of the Prospecton manufacturing facility has been elevated to 220,000 units a year working on a two shift basis.
Delivering these vehicles requires a weekly service by specialised vehicle carriers to Europe and North Africa with deliveries to West Africa by ship every two weeks. The East African destinations are served by monthly shipments. All vehicles are shipped from Durban harbour.
Toyota's vehicle export programme is based on two model lines, the Hilux and Corolla sedan, with exports split virtually 50:50 between the two platforms. Both are manufactured in right- and left-hand drive derivatives to meet market requirements in their destination countries.
Export destinations for South African-built Toyotas include: Algeria; Angola: Austria; Belgium; Canary Islands; Czech Republic; Denmark; Egypt; Ethiopia; Finland; France; Gabon; Germany; Ghana; Greece; Hungary; Ireland; Israel; Italy; Kenya; Malawi; Mauritius; Morocco; The Netherlands; Nigeria; Norway; Pakistan; Poland; Portugal; Reunion; Slovenia; Spain; Sudan; Sweden; Switzerland; Tanzania; Tunisia; Turkey; United Kingdom; and Zambia.
Speaking at a function to celebrate the start of Corolla sedan exports from Prospecton, Johan van Zyl, Toyota South Africa's President and CEO said: “This historic occasion aligns Toyota South Africa closely with a number of other Toyota global production facilities, each with annual manufacturing capacity of 200,000 to 250,000 vehicles.
“This required a total transformation in the way we do business and in the way we build vehicles. Fundamental to this process was a multi-billion rand investment in new facilities and technologies that overshadowed anything that the local industry had seen before.
“This investment was made not only to increase annual production volumes to a required 220,000 units but also to ensure that this volume is achieved in accordance with the strictest global quality standards defined by TMC.”
He said local production facilities and inspection processes were continually audited by TMC for compliance with international quality benchmarks.
As a final quality check Toyota SA had also introduced a series of dynamic tests that are conducted on a new test track within the manufacturing plant area.
He said all vehicles were now subjected to a pre-shipping dynamic test that included a figure-of-eight track, a Belgian Pave section, and in-phase and out-of-phase rope road sections. These unique road surface sections were designed to highlight quality defects, such as loose components, that show up only under dynamic driving conditions.
“All export vehicles, and randomly sampled domestic market vehicles, are also subjected to a 140 km/h high-speed test on a closed track. The dynamic tests are completed immediately prior to shipping and where any defect is found the vehicle is returned to the plant for corrective action.
“Obviously the massive investment in the integration of Toyota South Africa into the TMC global production network has been supported by a substantial investment in training. To this end we have spent R300 million on training and development of our workforce over the past five years,” he said.
He said the export programme has led 12 new international suppliers to invest in South Africa. Eight of these were from Japan and four from Europe. Nine of these suppliers have invested in their own right and three were joint ventures with South African companies.
The total export programme had resulted in the creation of 4,000 new job opportunities.
