Hidden among the gleaming trappings of a state-of-the-art Toyota auto production plant -- the robotic arms and the dust free rooms -- is something that even the ancient samurai of Japan would recognize.
It's a "dojo" -- rooms housing a training program where workers are taught to gauge proper bolt-tightening by the buzz of an electric screwdriver, and how to pat parts into the car with the right touch, like an acupuncturist at work. Toyota Motor Corp. says that its "master craftsmen" at the Tahara plant, the 2,700 veteran workers whose eyes are sharp enough to catch minuscule errors even robots and computers miss, are the secret behind its vaunted quality.
At the factory, west of Tokyo, which makes LS, GS and IS Lexus models, cameras zipping around on robotic arms take more than 1,000 images of each car to check digitally for imperfections. Then corners and curves are examined by the human eye for more fine-tuning. Anyone who enters the room where the engines are built is hit with a blast of air to make sure not a speck of dust gets into the parts during production.
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