Charleston West Virginia Economic Development

Discussions on Economic and Community Development in West Virginia and the Charleston MSA as well as issues of the Charleston Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Monday, June 05, 2006

West Virginia Labor, the Most Productive you can Find!

Once again this article from the Charleston Gazette demonstrates the efficiency and productivity of the West Virginia Workforce. Congratulations to those employees in West Virginia's Toyota Plant for be the best once again!


From the Charleston Gazette

June 03, 2006

Toyota plant in Buffalo named most productive



Workers at Toyota’s Buffalo, West Virginia plant are again the most productive four- and six-cylinder engine makers in North America, according to a national auto industry analyst’s report.

It took the Putnam County workers 1.82 hours to make a four-cylinder engine, which made the facility the most productive engine operation for the fifth consecutive year, the 2006 Harbour Report said. The workers made 3.3-liter six-cylinder engines in 2.95 hours, down from three hours last year.

Harbour Consulting produces the annual report, which measures each automaker and its plant’s assembly, stamping and powertrain productivity performances.

This is only the third time the Harbour Report has had an engine plant that’s made engines in faster than two hours, and each time it was the West Virginia plant. Buffalo workers took an average of 1.88 hours to make its 1.8-liter four-cylinder engines in 2004, down from 1.94 in 2003.

Toyota’s North American workers were the most productive engine makers out of five other automakers in 2005, the report said. It took the company’s workers 2.9 hours to make an engine.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., congratulated the Putnam County workers for being dubbed the “benchmark in engine productivity.”

“What the workers at our Buffalo plant have done is simply unheard of,” he said in a prepared statement. “They have turned the production of automobile engines into an art form.

Toyota also remains one of the most profitable automakers in North America.

Toyota, Nissan and Honda each earned more than $1,200 on every vehicle they sold on the continent last year. Chrysler Group earned $233, while Ford lost $590 and General Motors lost $2,496, the report said.

The gap reflects several factors, like a large difference in health-care and pension costs, lower average revenue and higher costs of rebates and low interest rate financing required to trim inventories.

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