Toyota Camry: a Truly Global Car

Press Release

Toyota has redefined the concept of a global car with the development of the all-new 2006 Toyota Camry to be launched in Australia later this year.

While industry convention has seen global cars developed in one country for world markets, the development of the all-new Camry has received strong input from all of the six countries that will build the car – including Australia.

Australian development production and quality engineers played a pivotal role in the development and production preparation processes from the initial concept stage.

They have worked alongside Toyota colleagues from the United States, Japan, Thailand, China and Taiwan to ensure the new Camry is a truly global car.

The sporty new SE model in the US Camry line-up is inspired by the popular Australian-developed Sportivo model.

Camry is one of the first international market Toyota vehicles to benefit from true simultaneous engineering.

Simultaneous engineering means that input from everyone involved in both the development and manufacturing processes of a vehicle – right down to the assembly line workers – is taken into consideration at every stage of the development and preparation processes.

Hundreds of people from around the world were involved from the very first concept stage through to sign-off.

Even minor assembly issues were addressed at the earliest stages of design and development, thereby avoiding difficult and time-consuming re-engineering work or quality issues further down the track.

Australian supplier companies also had a voice from early in the parts design process, ensuring the most efficient design for production of key components in the vehicle.

The suppliers work through the new Toyota Technical Centre Australia located at Notting Hill in Melbourne – one of only five such centres in the Toyota world.

“Toyota Australia’s export program has certainly heightened the importance of Australia in the Toyota world and it was essential that we were integrated into the global program,” said Australian Camry project Chief Engineer John Bell.

At the start of the project, Camry Chief Engineer Kenichiro Fuse travelled from Japan to assess Australian conditions and the local market. He also reviewed Australia’s main export market – the Middle East. Australia’s Camry production volume is currently the second largest in the world.

Mr Bell coordinated scores of trips to Japan by Australian engineers to meet with their international colleagues.

They worked through every detail from the initial CAD (Computer Aided Design) drawings through clay models, computer simulations, final design and trial builds.

TMCA also selected five experienced production line workers from its Altona plant in Melbourne and taught them how to use CAD and Digital Assembly technology, allowing them to effectively bring more accurate and detailed Australian assembly input into the final design.

Thousands of production inputs from around the world were channelled through the Vehicle Production Engineering (VPE) department in Japan, where Toyota Australia engineer Anthony Perizzolo worked full-time for 14 months to ensure that all Australian production inputs were reflected in vehicle and tool designs.