Toyota is celebrating the opening of a new production plant in Blue Springs, Mississippi. The Toyota Motor Manufacturing Mississippi (TMMMS) plant produces Corollas, the world’s best-selling car of all time, according to J.D. Power and Associates. The TMMMS plant has created 1,500 jobs so far, and hopes to expand that number to about 2,000 jobs in the coming year. Toyota has made a conscious decision to design, develop, and build vehicles where they are sold. To this end, TMMMS is the 14th Toyota plant built in North America, and the 10th in America. The Corollas built in Mississippi will use parts created at other American Toyota plants in the central US. All engines for the Corollas will be supplied by the engine plant in Buffalo, West Virginia, while the block and cylinder heads for those engines will come from aluminum castings plants Toyota has in Missouri and Tennessee.
Producing the component parts and assembling the final vehicle in the US keeps Toyota’s costs low, allowing for competitive pricing in the marketplace. Other benefits from this model include fewer interruptions in the supply chain (such as the earthquake last spring), a reduced costs and carbon emissions by not shipping cars across the ocean, and of course, keeping American manufacturers busy.
As a further benefit to the area, Toyota has announced a partnership with the CREATE Foundation and a donation of $50 million towards the Center for Professional Futures (CPF). CPF will be an addition to the public school system for three counties in northern Mississippi. CPF will allow high school students to be exposed to professional courses such as pre-engineering, computer graphics and animation, architecture, advanced manufacturing, health science technology, and legal studies.
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