INNOVATION: The first Japanese auto plant to build a car in America — the Honda plant in Marysville, Ohio — turns 25 today. It marks a major milestone for Honda’s presence in the U.S. auto industry. The plant has been building one of America's most popular cars -- the Honda Accord -- since 1982.
A summarized account from American Honda Motor Co. in Torrance follows below:
The 5,300 employees at Honda’s Marysville factory will spend the day doing what they do best: build more than 1,800 cars and light trucks.
Later this month, they will hit another milestone — production of the plant’s nine-millionth vehicle.
Workers recently started building the eighth-generation Honda Accord at the plant.The Accord was the plant’s first vehicle and it remains the plant’s core product.
The U.S. is the most important market for the Accord by far, with sales of more than 300,000 of them through September, mostly built in Marysville.
Nearly 80 percent of all Honda and Acura vehicles sold in America are built at one of Honda’s six auto plants in North America.
Honda brought its brand to manufacturing when it established Honda of America Mfg., Inc. near Marysville to begin making motorcycles in 1979. Success of that startup led that same year to the decision to build an auto plant as well.
At the time, the company was still a relative newcomer to the automobile business and only a fraction the size of Japan’s established automakers.
The Marysville plant introduced many new concepts to the U.S. auto industry, including just-in-time parts delivery, quick die changes in metal stamping, rolling model changes to launch new vehicles without stopping production and a high level of flexible model production.
Honda’s automotive experience in Ohio became the model for Honda globally, America President Akio Hamada Hamada said. This included terms of local production, developing a local supplier network, and working closely with communities.
As the first Accord sedans began rolling off the line Nov. 1, 1982, Honda employees who built cars in small numbers with nearly identical content and in only a few colors also had little manufacturing experience.
In the last two months of 1982, fewer than 1,000 Accords were produced as the associates focused on mastering their car-building skills. By the end of 1982, they were making 160 cars per day.
Today, the Marysville plant has the capacity to build 440,000 vehicles per year on two lines. Using the flexibility to build multiple models on the production line, employees have added light trucks. In addition to the Accord sedan and coupe, they build the Acura TL luxury sedan, and the Acura RDX sport utility vehicle.
The opening of the Marysville plant embodied Honda’s approach: design, engineer and build vehicles near the customer. So far, Honda operates six auto plants in North America, while a seventh, in Indiana, will begin operations in fall 2008.
The additional production of 200,000 Civics per year at that plant will help boost Honda’s total North American automobile production capacity to more than 1.6 million units in 2008, employment in North America to more than 37,000 employees and capital investment in North America to more than $9 billion.
More information: www.honda.com.
Leave a comment