Report: Chrysler equals Toyota for efficiency

Posted Thu Jun 5 2008 10:39 AM by Siddharth Raja

The latest report from influential analytical firm Harbour Consulting-Oliver Wyman has found that Chrysler’s Supplier Park plant in Toledo, Ohio, is the most efficient vehicle assembly plant in North America. Not only that, the Harbour Report also found that Chrysler’s overall efficiency and productivity was equal with that of Toyota.

The Supplier Park plant manufactures Jeep Wranglers and only needs 13.57 labor hours per vehicle. However, not all credit can go to Chrysler because the plant is actually micromanaged by a number of different firms. Kuka Group is used to manage the body shop, while Magna Steyr manages the paint shop and Hyundai Mobis looks over the chassis assemblies.

The next-closest assembly plant was General Motors' Oshawa No. 1 plant in Ontario, Canada. The plant used 15.18 labor hours per vehicle to build Chevrolet Impala sedans.

Chrysler showed the biggest improvement of all carmakers, cutting its total manufacturing labor hours per vehicle by 7.7% to 30.37 on average, the same number recorded by Toyota. However, Toyota's number did slip compared with last year’s result. It needed 2.5% more hours to produce a vehicle this year than it did last year.

Ford improved its total manufacturing productivity by 3.7% to 33.88 labor hours per vehicle, while GM's total improved 0.2% to 32.29 hours.

Reader Comments

Thu Jun 5 2008 11:06 AM
Gus says

The big difference are the back end labor costs, since Toyota doesn't have the backlog of union worker benefits - yet...
Thu Jun 5 2008 11:12 AM
Jeff says

Thats not a good thing, as toyotas quality in the last 2 years hasnt been great, so chrysler just went from bad to just a little bid above that. good work
Thu Jun 5 2008 11:15 AM
Zarba says

Unfortuantely, efficiently building cars and trucks NO ONE WILL BUY just doesn't cut it.
Thu Jun 5 2008 11:39 AM
chris says

jeff, zorba nailed it... thats efficiency in building the product in terms of man hours. toyota cars could be much more complex, but this study doesnt account for that. it takes half a day to make a wrangler? no way. the simplest car on the market. amazing.
Thu Jun 5 2008 1:05 PM
NCyder says

Yeah, you have to somehow normalize the number to compare one company to another. The most telling number, though, is profit. Hard to argue that Toyota is inferior in that area.

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