It'll be very interesting to see how Toyota proceeds.
The article mentions their "Lean Production Method". Combines just-in-time supply of parts with self-propelled assembly lines, leading to a system with extreme flexibility such that a wide variety of different cars can be assembled all on one production line, without having to switch stuff around. The production line can mix different car models and trims one after the other allowing multiple car types to be built on the same line all day long.
It's really pretty amazing, to me at least, how it works. Porsche adopted the system, presumably w/help from Toyota, many years back, They have a bunch of videos floating around of various cars being built, which is mostly how I know about it.
I have to think most large automotive companies use some version of it now. It seems to work very well for those companies who adopted the approach.
Porsche's public-facing build and delivery tracking system, OTOH, is a hot mess. The projected dates fluctuate wildly and are often demonstrably incorrect (e.g. the system lists people's cars as still sitting at the port in Emden Germany while the customer's sitting in their car at the dealership). That's a happy example. The examples are not all happy.
My sales guy was complaining bitterly to me about it yesterday. All the inaccuracy is causing customers to freak out and besiege the sales people w/calls. And the sales people have zero control over production or tracking.
First world problems.
