Rudy

Check out this video of Ford's plant in rural Brazil -- bailout or not, it seems like a good idea to house supplier's assembly lines under the same roof, doesn't it?

http://info.detnews.com/video/index.cfm?id=1189

kneemah

i use to work in production control at the toyota plant in long beach, ca. the intranet news that they had, would always mention the UAW's efforts to try to unionize the kentucky plant (toyota's largest plant in north america). however toyota gave so many perks and emphasized safety so much, most employees felt like the UAW would ruin what they had much like they did to the big 3.

the plant i worked at only had small parts (bolts, brackets) shipped in from other vendors, but i can defiantly see how putting the vendors inside your plant would speed up production. i'm just curious how those vendors monitor their lines.

ImolaRedM

Forgive my ignorance with assembly line work. I'm very interested in this kind of thing but my field is more inline with technology (Online Applications). Isn't supplier assembly line integration just a new twist of an old idea? Isn't this just doing what used to be done before Ford and others started outsourcing to companies like Lear?