By ANDREA HOWE, Princeton Daily Clarion
andrea@pdclarion.com
GEORGETOWN, Ky. - By month's end, 110 Gibson County Toyota plant workers will be making vehicles at a sister plant in Georgetown, Ky.
Toyota North America spokesman Mike Goss said 39 workers started this week as part of the company's dispatch program during down-time at the Princeton plant.
Production of the flagship Toyota Tundra pickup, first to roll off the line here, ceased permanently in Gibson County this summer during sluggish sales with high gasoline prices nationwide. The company announced this summer that future Tundras will be made at a sister plant in San Antonio, Texas.
Local production of the Sequoia sport utility vehicle, also in a sales slump with high gas prices, was halted until at least November.
Production of the Sienna van continues locally, and preparations are under way at the Gibson County plant to build the smaller Highlander SUV here next year.
The work slow-down affected about 2,000 of the 4,500 employees at the plant, local plant spokesman Kelly Dillon said.
The company offered employees affected by the slowdown the option of using vacation time, unpaid leave time off at times, maintenance and training work or temporary dispatch to other plants where they may be needed.
Goss said several hundred local workers expressed interest in being dispatched to Kentucky. The Gibson County workers coming to Kentucky won't affect employment at that plant.
Goss said the option may also include dispatch to the Subaru plant in Indiana that makes Camrys.
Those sent to Kentucky are housed in apartment communities in Lexington and Georgetown, reported Thursday's Lexington Herald-Leader.
Goss and Dillon declined to discuss the details of the dispatch program, but Goss said it's commonly used in Japan where plants are located in closer proximity.
"It's the first time we've ever done anything on this scale in North America," he acknowledged.
Local employees have trained in Tahara, Japan, worked with Japanese trainers dispatched here temporarily, helped train in San Antonio and worked with new San Antonio employees in Gibson County.
Activity at the Gibson County plant includes Sienna production, safety training, maintenance, plant improvement, re-tooling for the Highlander production, and will include some cross training in manufacturing that that will allow the plant more flexibility, said Dillon and Goss.